Orders of the Day
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	Debate on the Address
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	[Second Day]

Geoff Hoon: Mr. Speaker, may I begin, on behalf of the Foreign Secretary, by extending his apologies to the House for his absence today? He is in the middle east undertaking visits in relation to Iraq and the middle east peace process.
	In the past year, the Government have set out their forward thinking on both foreign affairs and defence. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has published the Foreign and Commonwealth Office strategy, "UK International Priorities", and I have published two White Papers, "Delivering Security in a Changing World" and, most recently, the "Future Capabilities" paper. Each of these papers analyses the rapidly changing security environment, setting out how the United Kingdom should face the challenges that confront the world at the start of this new century.
	Threats to our security—and to the security of our allies and partners—which have emerged since the end of the cold war are now more disparate and more diverse, but they remain just as real, just as immediate and just as dangerous. The sheer scale of the ruthless, fanatical violence of international terrorist groups across the world is without precedent. Since the attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, there have been appalling atrocities in places as far apart as Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Morocco, Spain and Russia. Their common thread is their appalling barbarity: the deliberate and indiscriminate targeting of innocent people to cause the maximum loss of life and suffering.Nor must we forget the individual victims of terror. We are saddened and appalled by the murder of Margaret Hassan, a woman who had devoted her life to helping the people of Iraq.
	In addition, we must deal with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the technology associated with their means of delivery. The ambitions of some states to acquire such weaponry is profoundly disturbing; the ambition of terrorist groups to do so is simply terrifying. We believe that these are the greatest threats to our security, and confronting them is the perhaps the single most important challenge that the civilised world faces today.

Geoff Hoon: I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Trade and Investment, who will be winding up this debate on behalf of the Foreign Office, will deal with the first part of my hon. Friend's question. That is the traditional role of those who wind up in these debates, as right hon. and hon. Members will be aware. On the second matter, my hon. Friend has asked me this question on a number of occasions, and I am delighted to give him the same answer: this is not a matter for this Parliament, but it obviously will be a matter for a future Parliament to debate.
	There are further challenges posed by weak and failing states, where all too often political mismanagement, ethnic and religious tensions or economic collapse can lead to humanitarian crises. Climate change is beginning to threaten the long-term supply of food and water, forcing migration and dislocation. All too often, the misery and injustice of poverty, hunger and disease are exacerbated by weak and corrupt government and the breakdown of law and order.
	Terrorists feed on such lawlessness. Failing states, with territory that cannot be governed, provide the ideal haven from which terrorist groups can plan, train and operate. There are, of course, no purely military solutions to those challenges. There is a vital role for the armed forces, but that must be seen in a wider context—the diplomatic, political, economic, developmental and, indeed, cultural solutions that are also required.
	The United Kingdom must not fail in the responsibility we share with our partners in the international community to ensure that we address the causes, not just the consequences, of failing states.

Angus Robertson: I am certain that the Secretary of State and many Members of the House will be deeply concerned about the ongoing events in Ukraine. In light of the Government's support of democracy and human rights, will they join the European Union and the United States Administration in calling on the Ukrainian authorities not to certify the election result until fraud allegations have been fully investigated?

Geoff Hoon: I believe that we are. Clearly, it is important for the Security Council to live up to its responsibilities on behalf of the wider international community. It is equally important when important members of that Security Council take a diplomatic initiative that they should be given the opportunity to do so. I am confident that the efforts of, in particular, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in this respect are leading to a positive engagement with Iran, which I hope and believe will lead to a positive conclusion from that country.
	In September 2005, the United Nations will hold a summit to review progress in reaching the millennium development goals—to halve absolute poverty, ensure that all children receive primary education, and reduce maternal and infant mortality by 2015—but Africa is not on track for even the 2005 goals, let alone the 2015 targets. That is why Africa is at the top of our list of priorities for our chairmanship of the G8 and the European Union next year. It is also why the Prime Minister has asked the Commission for Africa to take a fresh look at what is holding back Africa's progress and put forward a strategy for Africa's future development.
	The United Kingdom's aid to Africa will reach £1 billion in 2005. We are on track to reach the United Nations 0.7 per cent. target for our total overseas development assistance in less than a decade.

Geoff Hoon: There are obviously concerns in both places, which is why it is important that the Government continue their determined diplomatic effort to improve the situation there. In addition, on Sudan, we have offered practical military advice to the African Union. We consider that a sensible way forward in dealing with the particular crisis in Sudan.
	We have led the fight for debt relief, writing off bilateral debt owed to the United Kingdom. We have provided $70 billion of debt relief for the world's poorest countries. We are now taking the lead on multilateral debt. We have made clear that we will fund our share of multilateral debt relief; and we will now press others to take up the challenge.
	Within the G8, we will also take forward work on counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation and support for change and development throughout the broad middle east region.
	Climate change will also be at the top of our agenda. We will aim to get agreement on the basic science of climate change and the need to accelerate the development of new technology to meet the threat it poses.
	When we hold the EU presidency, we will focus on economic reform and the further liberalisation of trade within Europe. We will take forward the agreement reached between World Trade Organisation members to begin reducing agricultural subsidies—a key goal of the Doha development agenda.
	At the UN millennium review summit, we will seek a stronger consensus on the relationship between threats and development, and work to strengthen the power of the United Nations partners to deliver peace and security.
	As I have indicated, my hon. Friend the Minister for Trade and Investment will deal in more detail with a number of issues, including the middle east peace process, when he winds up the debate. I will now deal with our specific policies in relation to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans.

Lembit �pik: On the assumption that the Secretary of State will focus on those three points, can I ask him about a domestic issue relating to defence? He will know that for some time I have been calling for a full independent inquiry into the deaths at Deepcut barracks, because I feel that there are unanswered questions, which the parents rightly have a reason to carry on asking. Can he give me an indication of what steps I should take to try to get the closure that those parents want, because the more I see, as proceedings continue regarding the Deepcut barracks, the more concerned I am that we have not got to the heart of what caused those deaths?

Geoff Hoon: The hon. Gentleman has raised this issue with me on a number of occasions, and I congratulate him on his determination. May I make the point, of which I am sure that he is aware, that a further coroner's inquest is still to be held, and it is important that that should have the opportunity of reaching whatever conclusions it does thereafter? If I may invite him to raise the issue with me again in the future, obviously I will give it proper consideration.

Geoff Hoon: I would not be as pessimistic as my hon. Friend. I have visited that area of the world on several occasions, both in my present position and in my previous position in the Foreign Office, as he has. What is important about our current opportunity is that whatever conclusions are reached, they must be agreed to by a democratically elected Administration that represent the Palestinian people. That is the first stage in this process, which we are now strongly supporting. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is currently in the middle east having discussions with both sides to facilitate a resumption of the process. I accept that there has been difficulty in recent times. This is an opportunity to overcome those difficulties and make the kind of progress that I am sure that my hon. Friend, and certainly the Government, would want to see.

David Winnick: Before my right hon. Friend departs from the issue of the middle east, while recognising that there are innocent casualties on both sides, has he seen a report in today's newspaper that an Israeli army officer repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian female? He is being charged, but not with murder. Is there not the gravest concern about such incidents and tragedies occurring in the occupied territories and the feeling that the Israeli army is simply out of control?

Bob Spink: Following the question from the hon. Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick), will the Secretary of State again pay tribute to our armed forces, wherever they are operating, for their courage and professionalism and for the compassion they have shown to civilians and prisoners in particular, when that is appropriate? Will he also tell us whether he can commit himself to retaining The Black Watch?

David Chidgey: On security in Afghanistan, the Secretary of State will know from his visits that there is great concern about security beyond Kabul and about the shortage of resources for NATO and others to extend that security. It is all very well to point to the success of the presidential elections, but there is a general election to come and until such time as we have the resources in place to ensure the safety and security of the population, the overall security aims will remain in jeopardy. What discussions has the right hon. Gentleman had with our American counterparts about recovering for Afghanistan some of the resources that have been diverted to Iraq?

Geoff Hoon: I apologise to my hon. Friend but I really need to make progress. I did give way to him earlier.
	President Karzai has gained a clear mandate to press on with the political and economic reform needed to deliver a stable Afghanistan. It is vital that the international community remains engaged in that country's development. Important lessons learned from the presidential elections need to be implemented for the parliamentary elections scheduled for spring 2005. The UK will be working closely with the Afghan Government and the UN to make these further elections a success.
	Security during the presidential elections, provided by the Afghan authorities, by the NATO-led international security assistance force and by coalition forces, was a major factor in ensuring the success of the election processand it was a blow to the efforts of terrorists that they failed to prevent them taking place.
	The UK has some 860 personnel deployed in Afghanistan. Most serve with the international security assistance force, either in Kabul or with our two provincial reconstruction teams in the north of the country. Others serve with the RAF Harrier detachment in Kandahar, under coalition command. I had the privilege of meeting each of those units in the course of my visit.
	ISAF has long been instrumental in ensuring stability in Kabul. Our PRTs, together with those of our allies throughout the rest of Afghanistan, have helped the Afghan transitional authority progressively to extend its influence across the country. They are a remarkable success story. The UK is working with NATO to make ISAF operations as effective as possible, and to make its expansion a reality. ISAF now has some 9,200 troops deployed from 37 NATO and non-NATO countries.
	We are playing a leading role in building up Afghan capability in law and order. The effective enforcement of the rule of law is vital for Afghanistan's reconstruction and long-term stability, as it is for tackling the hugely complex issue of the opium industry.
	However, I should not finish my remarks on Afghanistan without expressing our delight that Annetta Flanigan and her two fellow hostages were released yesterday. I am grateful to the Afghan Government and our international partners for all their work to resolve this crisis over the past couple of weeks. I would like to pay my personal tribute to all of the individuals involved, many of whom I met on my recent visit to Afghanistan.
	I turn now to the Balkans. In recent years, the countries of the Balkans have made huge strides forward in their aspirations to join the Euro-Atlantic community, not least thanks to the deployment of our armed forces as part of international peace support efforts.
	NATO has played a vital role in moving the region towards this more stable condition. Its success can be seen from the reduction in troop levels in the Balkans. In Bosnia, the original level of 60,000 troops has been reduced to 7,000, and in Kosovo, NATO troop levels have been reduced from 55,000 in 1999 to the current 17,500.
	NATO has taken the decision to end its stabilisation force mission in Bosnia. That is the right decision for Bosnia, which is ready to take its next steps towards self-sustaining peace and stability. The EU will support Bosnia in taking those next steps. The EU mission, which takes over on 2 December, will include a robust military element, involving numbers initially similar to those provided by SFOR.
	The EU mission will take on the main peace stabilisation role in Bosnia, working in support of Lord Ashdown's mission implementation plan. The residual NATO headquarters will concentrate on defence reform and partnership for peace, and will also, together with the EU, carry out certain operational tasks, such as support for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
	The UK will lead the first military element of the EU mission, and provide the force commander, Major-General David Leakey. This NATO-EU partnership will be good for Bosnia, and will help that country further along the road towards membership of the EU and NATO.
	This will be by far the largest military mission under EU leadership. It will also be the most extensive test of the Berlin-plus arrangements, which provide for the EU to draw on NATO assets and capabilities in support of an operation. The UK believes that the mission will be an important milestone in proving the capability of an EU defence and security policy that complements, rather than competes with, NATO. However, despite progress, the Balkans region remains volatile, as the violence in Kosovo during March demonstrated. We cannot afford to be complacent. NATO remains determined to ensure peace and stability in Kosovo.

Geoff Hoon: I need to make a little more progress.
	A strong Euro-Atlantic relationship, founded on NATO, remains the basis of the United Kingdom's security policy. The continued strength of the alliance depends on delivering when and where it matters. NATO must maintain its ability to react flexibly beyond its borders, to deter and disrupt threats before they reach us. It must keep up the pace of its transformation, to ensure that it can provide modern structures and forces that are ready to deliver the right military responses. It also means improved mechanisms for generating such forces, with a strengthened commitment from our allies to providing them.
	Against that background, we are working with our EU partners to improve European military capabilities. As the new constitutional treaty makes explicit for the first time, NATO remains the foundation of our collective defence. Our aim is to develop European military forces that enhance NATO as well as the European Union. The EU Battlegroups initiative, for which Defence Ministers committed forces at Monday's European Council meeting, will allow the EU to rapidly deploy troops, trained and evaluated to agreed standards. Open and transparent liaison will ensure that these battlegroups are fully compatible with the NATO response force. And in driving the development of the right capabilities by our EU allies, the battlegroups concept will be central to our efforts to manage overstretch.

Geoff Hoon: The hon. Gentleman is simply and absolutely wrong. He raises yet again a scare story about the European Union that has no foundation in fact. I am sorry if Central Office has given him that line to take, but he should go back to the researcher who provided it and tell him that he has got it completely, absolutely and hopelessly wrong.
	European defence complements NATO. The EU can bring together a range of crisis management responsesdiplomatic, military, civilian, judicial, as well as economic. Its new civilian-military cell is an example of that potential. Such capabilities will fill crucial gaps in the mechanisms now available for handling the current complex security environment.
	Our success in driving the agenda is a vindication of this Labour Government's approach to Europe. We are leading the debate and winning the argument: not sitting sulking on the sidelines, neglecting our national interest. If the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) has anything serious to say about military capabilities, he needs to explain to the House and the country how his half-baked ideas on Europe would in any way increase the number of military forces available. That is what this Government have achieved through European defence, and he needs to face up to that.
	At the start of this speech I set out our recognition that the strategic environment has changed, and now we need to ask what that means for the armed forces. The international community must confront the threats from international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But there is also an imperative to intervene for humanitarian or peacekeeping reasons in places like Kosovo, Macedonia, East Timor and Sierra Leone. Even if the territory of the United Kingdom is not directly threatened, our interests and ambitions are increasingly interrelated with those of others: seldom will conflict in one area not spread to contaminate another. As a result, our armed forces are facing a wider range, frequency and duration of tasks than ever before. We need armed forces that are structured and equipped to deploy rapidly on multiple, concurrent small and medium-scale operations; armed forces that optimise platforms and units so that they have increased effectiveness across the full range of military effectsfrom war deterrence, to war fighting, to peace support.
	The changed nature of the security environment demands that the shape and structure of the armed forces, and their equipment and doctrine, will have to adapt accordingly. To propose that we should do otherwisein effect, to leave our armed forces structured and equipped to match an enemy and a threat that is no longer apparentwould be a grave misjudgment. The Conservatives risk turning our armed forces into a museum piecean excellent display, but never taken out of their case for operational use. That would be a complete failure of our duty to the people of the United Kingdom, to our international allies and partners and to the men and women in our armed forces, of whom we ask so much. Not to engage in the modernisation of our armed forces would weaken our nation's defence, at precisely the time when it needs to be strong.
	We have, therefore, embraced change. The armed forces themselves, under the leadership of the service chiefs, recognise the need for change; and that is why we have embarked on the process of modernisation set out in the future capabilities paper, published in Julymodernisation backed by extra investment from a Labour Government committed to strong defence. The next three years will see the defence budget rising by 3.7 billionan average annual increase of 1.4 per cent. in real terms and a continuation of the longest sustained period of increased spending on defence for 20 years.
	The Government are investing in defence, and Labour's commitment to defence stands in stark contrast to the Conservatives' proposals. The shadow Chancellor has said that he will freeze defence spending; in effect, cutting defence spending by 2.6 billionthe equivalent of 70,000 armed forces personnel, or cancelling our two new aircraft carriers. To fill the gaps in their spending plans, the Conservatives claim that they could find 1.6 billion in efficiency savings on top of the 2.8 billion that the Government have already earmarked.
	Tory proposals would mean drastic cuts in our logistics and procurement budgets. Are they seriously suggesting that 4.4 billion can be taken out of defence spending without some implications for the front line? Without logistics there would be no front line. Cuts in procurement spending would mean that our troops would not be getting the right equipment; never mind the implications for British industry and British jobs. Instead, we have drawn on our experience of operational commitments since the 1998 strategic defence review to identify those parts of the armed forces that are in the highest demand, and those that are less well used. As a result, we have developed new plans to ensure that our armed forces can remain effective. With modern communications and the fusion of intelligence, target acquisition and precision weaponry, the capability of our armed forces is improving exponentially.
	The Royal Navy of the future will be a highly versatile, expeditionary force, with the emphasis on the delivery of military effect on to land at a time and place of our choosing. Two new aircraft carriers deploying the joint strike fighter, and new ships to support amphibious operations, will provide a step change in our ability to launch and support forces ashore. Let me highlight the fact that those aircraft carriers will be built in the United Kingdom, employing British workers, despite the best efforts of the Liberal Democrats who want us to buy them abroad. Taken together with the additional investment in new submarines and the Type 45 destroyers, those developments will ensure that the fleet remains a formidable fighting force for many years to come.
	The Royal Air Force will be equipped with modern, highly capable, multi-role, fast jet aircraft, such as the Typhoon, which are able to deliver the offensive and defensive capabilities currently delivered by single-role aircraft. It will increasingly be able to exploit networked capabilities and will be equipped with a range of modern stand-off weapons.
	The rebalancing of the Army will be vital as we optimise our force structures to respond to the challenge posed by today's strategic environment. The intention is to provide the Army with a better balanced mix of capabilitiesfrom tanks and artillery at the heavy end, through enhanced medium and light-weight capabilities to increase the deployability of our land forces.

Menzies Campbell: Can the Secretary of State tell the House what the Government's intention is towards the third tranche of the Typhoon? Does he intend to place an order?

Geoff Hoon: Since we have yet to sign the contract for the second tranche, which we have been negotiating over the past few weeks, it is important that we take our fences as they arise. I hope to be able to set out the position to the House in due course, but until we have solved the problem with the second tranche, both the financial and other implications, it is right that I should not speculate about the third tranche. I will give way again to the right hon. and learned Gentleman if he would like to give an absolute commitment that the Liberal Democrats would sign a contract for the tranche, with all the costs involved, but he does not want to do sookay.

Geoff Hoon: I had, by chance, a meeting this morning with a number of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends who represent constituencies in Northern Ireland. We had a very good discussion about the way forward, but I hope that they will accept that we agreed that any decisions in anticipation of normalisation and what we hope will be a long-term political settlement in the north of Ireland would then lead to further discussions about how we best deal with the situation there.
	The arms plot has tied up seven or eight infantry battalions at any one time with moving, re-roling and retraining. By removing arms plotting, most if not all the eventual 36 battalions of infantry will be available to deploya significant increase in deployable battalions. The changes that we are introducing will ensure that we have more forces available for operations, while reducing the burden of operational commitments for both our people and their families. Those changes will produce a new structure for the infantry. We want to retain the best of the regimental systemcontinuity, regional identity, esprit de corps and traditionwhile losing the worst: instability, inflexibility and undermanning. We believe that we can do that and create a more efficient and flexible Army.
	The world is going through a period of major strategic change. The challenges posed by international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and failed states are global challenges that will require an international response. In dealing with them, we must work in partnership with our allies in Europe, NATO and the United Nations to resolve conflict, build peace and democracy and tackle the causes of poverty and instability. Where necessary, the international community must be prepared to intervene and take action.
	The men and women of our armed forces, diplomats and civil servants are already playing their part. They are supporting the Iraqi and Afghan people as they build a new, democratic future, and they are doing so in difficult and dangerous circumstances. They are at the very sharp end of our desire to be a force of good in the world. I pay tribute to them.

Nicholas Soames: No, I have had enough of the right hon. Gentleman. He has had nothing sensible to say so far. Indeed, he is on indefensible ground.
	Has the security situation changed for the better since the strategic defence review? Have Afghanistan, Iraq and Sierra Leone never happened? Are our armed forces today experiencing a smaller and less frequent range of operational demands than they did in the early 1990s? Has the average interval of 24 months between tours been achieved, or is it not the case that the actual intervals have been as low as three and five months in some cases?
	At this time of considerable danger from terrorism at home and abroad and of major military deployments overseas, with no sign of any let-up, the cuts by amalgamation or disbandment of any battalion are wholly and utterly unjustified. The way in which the cuts have been handled shows the complete shambles to which the Government have been reduced. In the space of the last month, the position has changed on a daily basis.
	First, the Defence Secretary said that the only option was the disbanding of the Scottish regiments and their merger into one or two super-regiments. Then the Prime Minister said that no decision had been made. The Scottish Secretary told my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) that it was important to take account of public opinion. Scotland's First Minister said that he supported the retention of the regiments.
	Downing street then told the Scottish press that four of our regiments would be saved in their current form, which lasted just long enough for the Prime Minister to have an interview without coffee with the Chief of the General Staff, who will have, I assume, put the Prime Minister firmly back in his place. That lasted all of 12 hours until the Prime Minister said once again that no final decision had been made. So who is making policy? Is it Downing street or the Ministry of Defence? The answer would be welcome, particularly by the regiments.
	We welcome the acknowledgement of the absolute need to continue robust and collective military training at all levels. That is one of the issues that the Select Committee report Lessons of Iraq raised, saying:
	The high number of operations which UK service personnel have been involved in has had an adverse impact on their training.

Nicholas Soames: I am always grateful to my hon. Friend for his helpful interventions. Some farmers and landowners have decided that they will no longer accord facilities to the armed forces for military training. Strongly though I and they feel, I hope very much that they will reconsider that, purely and solely because it is important that our armed forces have the best possible training facilities available to them; the general sense of what my hon. Friend says is, of course, correct.
	Reductions in training have a progressively damaging effect on fighting power. At the highest leveljoint, combined-arms collective training at formation level and aboveit may take years to recover fully the standards and capabilities that have been degraded and in some cases even lost. As I explained earlier this year, although our armed forces continue to give a remarkable account of themselves, it is by general consent a profound worry that we are beginning to take risks which, if not dealt with, will lead to a disaster sooner or later.
	I turn to the latest initiative of the European Union's involvement in defence matters, an involvement that will create complications and at the end of the day will be of little added value. In Brussels on Monday, there was further agreement on the battle groups concept. I wish to make clear, as I always have at the Opposition Dispatch Box, that we always will welcome initiatives that genuinely produce additional military capabilities from our European allies. However, what is proposed is something entirely different. The reality is that the European allies have not been able to meet the over-ambitious, grandiose targets for the so-called European rapid reaction force, which was supposed to generate a headline deployable capability of 60,000 troops by December 2003. You will not be surprised to hear, Mr.   Speaker, that this did not materialise. It did not happen and it could not happen. I cannot say that any of us are remotely surprised. Indeed, it never could have happened because the capabilities of our European allies have, very regrettably, continued to decline.

Nicholas Soames: I unreservedly agree with the hon. Gentleman, but all that is perfectly possible and has been taking place for many years through NATO, through the partnership for peace operations and through those of its successor. These have been extremely successful operations. To go outside that will cause real confusion, and I propose to come on to that.
	The European countries are merely putting on the table military forcesin some instances, entirely inadequate military forcesthat already exist and are already, in theory, highly committed to other tasks. Britain, for example, already has a range of stand-by forces, including the Spearhead battalion. There is a limit to the number of different labels that can be put on the same forces that are already earmarked for a range of NATO and national tasks. I think that the Secretary of State should be more honest and straightforward in explaining this.
	Nothing new is being created. Not one extra man, weapon, capability or other item of military use is being created, except the involvement of the European Union. This is a political gesture of the most dangerous sort and its consequences for NATO could well be serious and far-reaching. It will bring confusion and potentially dangerous complications. If the EU wants to command a military operation, it now has to establish complex arrangements within the NATO structures, which would be entirely unnecessary if NATO were to remain in control.
	Consider operation Althea, which is due to start in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 2 December. There, the EU will take over from NATO. As a result, alongside the new EUFOR mission, NATO will remain with a small headquarters in Sarajevo. In the meantime, there are truly serious overlaps and real frictions between the two. Are the two missions meant to have a parallel or hierarchical relationship? Are they clearly separated? Will the new NATO mission hold a superior mission in relation to EUFOR? What are their respective responsibilities? Some would say that the motives of the EU have less to do with the real security situation in that country rather than with the EU's eagerness to bolster its credibility as a military player.

Donald Anderson: The hon. Gentleman raises a number of interesting issues when EUFOR takes over from KFOR on 2 December. All these matters would be resolved for him if he had a word with General Leakey, who will be taking over on 2 December. All these matters are being resolved with the US commander of KFOR. Why is the hon. Gentleman raising issues that are in the course of being resolved?

Nicholas Soames: I have the highest regard for General Leakey and I am sure he will do his very best to resolve these matters, but I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that in all military operations the single most important thing in command is clarity. The worry about these EU operations is the lack of clarity in the chain of command. General Leakey will, I am sure, do his best to resolve them, but there are great frictions and real difficulties; 2005 could see the conjunction of several potentially destabilising events in the Balkans. To test European defence ambitions as if Bosnia were some kind of laboratory is not a good idea.
	To return to the subject of the battle groups, I understand that the Dutch Defence Minister confirmed to the European Parliament two days ago that the battle groups create no new troops, will use the same forces as are in service nowthey are already declared for use on a variety of tasks by the sovereign nations and by NATOand are already assigned many tasks. As has been the case throughout the whole of this dubious EU defence project, we are talking merely about a change in political command, without the will to carry it through in a serious and coherent manner.

Nicholas Soames: and look increasingly unserious about their commitment to hard military issues. What effect will that have on the transatlantic relationship?
	The transatlantic relationship is going through an important period of trying to create a new framework in which to tackle challenges of a profoundly different nature from those with which it has previously been occupied. The Secretary of State correctly referred to transformation. It is right that that should be pushed ahead with all possible vigour.
	There are issues that bring us closer, but there are others that divide us. The harsh realities of today are an important reminder of why we ought to be working together, and I hope that all hon. Members realise what a chilly and frightening place the world would be without an internationally active America. Terrorism is a global problem. The worldwide reach of terrorist networks implies that global terrorism cannot be fought effectively solely by military means, or only on one's home soil or by one country alone.
	I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity to dissociate himself from the pathetic and deeply offensive suggestion from the Leader of the House, in one of his increasingly extravagant and eccentric outbursts, that the country can be safe from terrorism only with a Labour Government in power. Terrorism is a long-term challenge. We look forward to hearing from the hon. babythe Minister for Trade and Investment (Mr. Alexander)that he will renounce the words of the Leader of the House.
	Terrorism is a long-term challenge. There are no quick or easy solutions, but one thing is certain; close international co-operation, including across the Atlantic, remains crucial to our task. Living away from regions of instability does not guarantee our security. In a globalised, interlinked world, people and ideas flow freely around the globe. A Government have no higher duty than to provide security for their people, both at home and abroad. Foreign policy is central to that; yet, regrettably, the Government's policies are often unplanned, ill considered and at the mercy and drift of the whims and tides of events, whereas a clear and coherent approach linking analysis of problems to the proposed solutions and the resources to carry them out is vital.
	The Government disastrously failed to prepare for the post-conflict period in Iraq. There was no plan for post-Saddam Iraq. Worse still, the Government ignored the well tried and proven norms that our people have learned over many years of experience on peacekeeping missions; to send the army back to barracks to await further orders, to keep the police policing, to leave the civil service in post until otherwise directed, to control the borders to hinder insurgency and to have a real plan in place for job creation and economic reconstruction.
	Amid political instability and violence, Iraq's economic problems have been viewed as secondary and unrelated. They are not. United States and Iraqi institutions have systematically lost, and the insurgency gained momentum, as living conditions failed to improve, and the Government have failed adequately to act upon the link between economics and security. I hope that the Secretary of State will reassure the House that they are better prepared for the January elections, which are central and vital to establishing the democratic legitimacy of the new Iraqi Government. With much territory beyond the Interim Government's control and sectarian and ethnic forces threatening to pull the country apart, there is a profoundly difficult task ahead. The period between now and the elections will be hard going and will require the greatest of skill.
	In Afghanistan we are in charge of controlling opium production. The UN's annual opium survey reveals that poppy cultivation increased by two thirds this year. Last year, Afghanistan exported 87 per cent. of the world's supply. Once again, the Government have failed to plan adequately. The UN report for 2003 found that one in 10 Afghans, many of them unemployed returned refugees, is involved in the drugs trade, which last year employed 2.3 million people and made up 60 per cent. of the gross national product. Is that what the Prime Minister meant when in 2001 he pledged to eradicate the scourge of opium along with the Taliban? In his own words,
	90 per cent. of the heroin on British streets originates in Afghanistan . . . the arms the Taliban are buying today are paid for with the lives of people buying their drugs on British streets. That is another part of their regime we should seek to destroy.
	The most fundamental challenge inherent in international terrorism that we are fighting today is ideology. Military pressure is but one way of defeating al-Qaeda and its franchises, which could in the future become more widespread, extreme, international and autonomous. But just as important are sound intelligence, political dialogue and diplomatic, political and economic engagement, to remove from the terrorists the havens where they would seek shelter or a passive support that they might enjoy. Looking back on the cold war, we should take confidence from the fact that the enduring values of freedom and democracy, just as much as economic power and military muscle, triumphed. We must have a dialogue with those who do not support terrorism; with those who are free from its influence and find its teachings abhorrent. That means political dialogue, economic help, educational and aid programmes, encouraging democracy reform and education.
	Poverty combined with unemployment creates a social climate in which extremists and various populist and religious sects flourish; these in turn provide some of the recruits for violent groups in internal conflicts. According to some projections, the number of young unemployed in the Arab world and north Africa could reach 50 million in two decades. Such a situation will not be conducive to political stability. We must do all that we can to address these issues that have become a breeding ground for terrorists. We must try to help to solve those concerns that some in the Arab world might use to justify supporting and financing violent extremists. We must engage in a planned participation in the resolution of those combustible conflicts where we have a particular knowledge, experience or input that will be valuable.
	No conflict lends itself more to that than the Palestinian-Israeli dispute; a conflict that has for too long acted as a poisonous backdrop to regional tensions. Any durable settlement between Israel and the Palestinians cannot be imposed, let alone arrived at under duress. It must result from freely given consent on both sides if it is to take root in the communities who must live with the consequences.
	The way ahead is already clear. There can only be a two-state solution; two states west of the Jordan living co-operatively at peace with each other, an Israel secure within guaranteed and acceptable borders and a viable and independent Palestinian state. Like so many other such comprehensive and final status solutions, it is easy to envisage but the devil to deliver. It cannot be imposed and can be achieved only in a lasting way through dialogue, hard work and agreement.
	What proposals did the Prime Minister make when he last met the President of the United States? Is there an initiative to appoint a special envoy for the middle east to push the process forward with the vigour that it needs? Is there not a strong case for international peacekeeping monitors within the occupied territories and Gaza to promote security and to help to suppress the roots of terrorist violence? The Government are strong on save the world rhetoric but weak on action, as in so many other areas.

Nicholas Soames: My hon. Friend is right. There is a real need, above all, to bring to the Palestinian people, for their own good, benefit and future success in the world, good governance and good order; clearly, that is important. But more than any particular criticism of anyonelegions of legitimate criticisms can be made of both sidesthere needs to be a dialogue, and it needs to be pushed ahead. It will be hard pounding and hard work. Our country has a major role to play but, so far, we have seen very little of it.
	The Prime Minister speaks of saving Africa; except, apparently, Zimbabwe. We all agree with the Prime Minister on the need to make progress on Africa. But how is Zimbabwe advancing, except into a quagmire of dictatorship and xenophobia, as instanced by the latest frenzied assault on all foreign assistance agencies? Or has the killing stopped in Darfur? Here, the Government have taken a firm line, but with what results? On 8 October 2004, while in Addis Ababa, the Prime Minister announced a military force
	to deal with African genocides,
	the day after his Defence Secretary decreed the reduction in infantry numbers. A hollow laugh could be heard all over the land from the armed forces.
	The threats posed by rogue and failed states and international terrorism when combined with a backdrop of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction could have truly terrifying consequences. The proliferation of WMD poses the most serious danger to the peace of the world. Chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists or outlaw regimes could bring catastrophic harm. There is an urgent need to improve and modernise non-proliferation laws to address new and changing threats; to restrict the sale and transport of nuclear technologies and equipment; to close a loophole in the nuclear non-proliferation regimes that allow states to pursue weapons of mass destruction under the false cloak of legitimacy; to expand efforts to secure and destroy nuclear weapons and matriel. Finally, given the importance of intelligence in fighting the war on terror, we hope that the Minister will assure the House when he winds up tonight that the important recommendations made by the Butler inquiry regarding the co-ordination between the intelligence services will be and have been implemented.
	The Government have inflicted upon this country a foreign policy without shape and without agenda. It is little wonder that it is so regularly, so often and so badly derailed. But worse still, it is no wonder that our stock has fallen in the rest of the world, and the contents of the Queen's Speech do nothing to remedy that.

Donald Anderson: We have to attack the problem at each link of the chain, from production in Afghanistanwhere 95 per cent. of the heroin on our streets comes fromthrough each country on the trail from Afghanistan to the UK, to the criminal penalties, education and the range of other measures relevant to our country that are within the direct responsibility of our Government and civil society here. My point is to highlight the clear nexus between foreign and domestic policy, which is illustrated particularly dramatically by the drugs problem. One could also identify that nexus in regard to terrorism.
	Clearly we need not only the range of measures to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones) alluded, but a most serious effort by the international community. The United Kingdom has a particular role to play in that, because of our leadership in the Afghan national drugs control strategy. For those colleagues who might be interested, that is detailed in paragraphs 193 to 204 of the Foreign Affairs Committee report on the war on terrorism, which we published last July. Links are identified in the Queen's Speech between drugs, crime and security that involve international problems that cut across our borders and that require international co-operation to tackle them.
	The war against terrorism is also partly international and partly domestic. It might seem remote at one level, but we saw the newspaper headlines over the weekend suggesting that a number of those people released from Guantanamo Bay were still involved in terrorism and had reoffended. Yesterday's headline in The Independent said that the Government were seeking to create the politics of fear. On the same day, in an interesting juxtaposition, the Daily Mail reported a story about Canary Wharf. In the mid-1990s, we let into this country several hundred Algerian refugees, who were members of the FIS, after the election there. Many of them have gone to ground. However, it is from Pakistan that the greatest terrorist threat arises, and I pay tribute to President Musharraf for the courageous way in which he is dealing with that issue at home.

Donald Anderson: I wholly agree with my hon. Friend, but the kind of issues that I am thinking of include Uzbekistan, for example, and how we should respond to evidence that has been obtained by torture or to countries whose support we need in other areas. How should we deal with the Russian Federation over Chechnya, for example? How should we deal with Belmarsh? These important issues challenge us as democrats as we seek to face the problems of international terrorism. In terms of dealing with the Arab world, this involves a major task of public diplomacy, as the Foreign Office seeks to bring together the various elements in a board. The United States has the so-called greater middle east initiative. I am somewhat sceptical about that, first because it is so comprehensive and, secondly, because it seeks to take a top-down position and has not taken the countries involved fully into the discussion. However, it is most important that we encourage good governance in the Arab countries and seek to build every possible bridge of understanding there.
	What are the prospects, broadly, of those areas covered in the Gracious Speech in terms of foreign affairs? On transatlantic relations, we have to accept that the election is over and that President Bush is there for another four years. Perhaps some in the United States Administration are confident that the election confirmed popular support for their international relations policies.
	We will have to work with the Administration for the next four years. The new Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, is, happily, well known to this country and has a very close working relationship with Sir David Manning, our ambassador. Indeed, the change from Mr. Colin Powell could be positive in that it is clear that he was somewhat marginalised over his latter years in office and that Ms Rice is clearly an insider and has more clout in the White House, where it matters.
	We face strains between a number of our key European allies and the United States, particularly over Iraq, although it is significant that, in yesterday's talks at Sharm el-Sheikh, the French leader, Michel Barnier, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and other French officials were apparently far more conciliatory and started off far more co-operatively over Iraq. That emphasises the role of the United Kingdom, for which we are often criticised, of seeking to build a bridge between the United States and Europe. There will be key areas where we take a very different view from our US allies, such as Kyoto, the World Trade Organisation and Iran, but is important that we have this special relationship while trying to ensure that the US learns multilateralism and that the sheriff, reluctant or not, needs allies and accepts that he cannot manage on his own.
	Another such example is the western Balkans, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex. That relatively small part of Europe is manageable and it should be managed by the European Union, so it is wholly proper that the US, which two years or so ago was highly sceptical of an EU military presence following the initiative taken by Britain and France, is now totally supportive of a Berlin-plus initiative with the European Union forceEUFORtaking over in the western Balkans on 2 December. That is important in showing not only the transformation in US policies, but what we as Europeans must do in an area that so much affects our own interests and security. Equally, with our US partners, we have to get over those stereotypes of Mars and Venushard power and soft power, with the US doing the cooking and the Europeans doing the washing up.
	I turn to what the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex saidhe said it rather well, I thoughtabout the middle east peace process. The role of the US is vital if there is to be progress. I recall the point made by President Bush in Belfast when he undertook to give the same commitment to the middle east peace process as the Prime Minister had given to Northern Ireland. We have seen that commitment from the Prime Ministerindeed, it may be one of the great achievements of this Administration, although I conceded that it is built on many foundations that John Major laid earlierbut we have not seen that same commitment from the US. We may have seen at least the start of it with Monday's visit by Colin Powell, but the key aspect is that such a visit by the US Secretary of State had not taken place for 18 months, which hardly shows the promised commitment and engagement.
	It is clearly very important that the US should appoint a senior envoywhich, I say in passing, was recommended by the Foreign Affairs Committee and has been so recommended on a number of occasionsanalogous to the James Baker initiative during the early '90s. The points of movement have been set out alreadyensuring that the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza goes ahead and seeking to assure the Israelis on the security issue, because it is absolutely clear that the Palestinians could do more on the security side to prevent suicide attacks on Israelbut we can only hope that there is now a moment of opportunity because of the Palestinian elections and because the US has a President who does not face re-election due to the assurance of a second four-year term. Also, we have the elections in Iraq on 30 January, so the new leadership gives an opportunity that should not be missed.
	Turning to Iran and Iraq, we were unaware of the extent of Iran's development of a nuclear capability. By contrast, there was a massive exaggeration of the weapons of mass destruction available to Iraq, whereas we were unaware of the extent of Libya's development arising from the A.Q. Khan network. Libya, however, has proved a model case in co-operation and non-proliferation since last October. On Iran, we know of the EU 3 agreement in October last year, that the International Atomic Energy Agency will discuss Iran tomorrow and that there have been last-minute hitches in terms of the nature of the suspension and the monitoring of Iran's compliance with its undertakings to the EU 3.
	Who is right: the US to be very sceptical or Europe to be perhaps a little too naive about the development? History will tell.

Donald Anderson: The only colleague that I have not given way to is my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn).

Menzies Campbell: I have no doubt whatever that foreign affairs will form a major part of this Government's agenda between now and the general election, which is generally accepted as being likely to take place on the first Thursday in May next year.
	Darfur, the middle east, Iran, United Nations reform, Ukraine, Russia, Europe, Zimbabwe and the transatlantic relationshipall are issues that will be on the foreign policy agenda. Over all of those hangs the long, dark shadow of Iraq. The defence Secretary, in opening the debate, acknowledged that that issue was divisive in the House and in the country. Nothing that has occurred has caused me to alter my view that the military action that was taken in March 2003 was illegal, and taken on a flawed prospectus. That military action has imposed on us all, whether supporters or opponents, a moral obligation to the people of Iraq, which is painful, expensive and dangerous to fulfil.
	The background of that obligation is that we now know that there were no weapons of mass destruction; there was no serious and current threat; there was no real and present danger; and at least 12 months before the war, there was an overt acceptance, between the White House and No. 10 Downing street, that regime change was in contemplation and, on the United Kingdom's side, an explicit understanding that regime change would be illegal.
	Like everyone else, I welcome the announcement that elections for a transitional national assembly will take place in January, but we should not underestimate the difficulty of keeping that commitment, and the costs that may be incurred. The United States-led strategy of using overwhelming force in Falluja seems to me to be highly questionable and likely to prove counter-productive. A devastating military victory may have been won, but I question how many hearts and minds have been won at the same time.
	I have no doubt that much more must be done, urgently, to train, equip and motivate Iraqi military and police forces. The continued presence of multinational forces in such large numbers would not have been required if concerted efforts had been made much earlier to establish effective Iraqi security forces, and the wholesale disbandment of the Iraqi army can now be seen as a grievous error. On that I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames).
	The difficulty is that without greater security, the humanitarian situation cannot be improved. In fact, as the security situation has deteriorated, an increasing number of aid agencies have left the country, not wishing to subject even their most dedicated workers to the risks of kidnap or worse. It is essential for the humanitarian consequences of their withdrawal to be met. Not the least important task is to deal with the tens of thousands of people who were displaced by recent fighting, and to ensure that they have access to food, water, shelter, electricity and medicines.
	As I have said, my colleagues and I still believe that the military action was both illegal and unnecessary. We believe that questions of political accountability remain unanswered. That is why we tabled to the Gracious Speech an amendment that regrets the absence of any legislative measure
	to clarify the responsibility of the Prime Minister to Parliament, particularly in relation to the prerogative powers and the role of Parliament in matters of war and peace; and calls for a special Select Committee of the House to consider these matters.
	The Hutton inquiry was established to investigate the death of David Kelly. The remit of our own Intelligence and Security Committee and Butler inquiries was to examine the adequacy, assessment and use of intelligence. None of those inquiries, however, has examined or assessed the full political, legal and strategic advice given to the Prime Minister before the war; nor, indeed, has the Prime Minister's competence and judgment in the light of that advice been the subject of review. I hold it to be fundamental that the British Parliament has every right to hold the Prime Minister to account on Iraq, and fundamental for constitutional matters of war and peace to be addressed in full.

Menzies Campbell: My hon. Friend makes two very sound points. We shall see the legal advice eventuallyit will eventually reach the public domain. I am in no doubt about that. Had the Defence Secretary been present, I would have been willing to make a modest wager with himin the sum of, let us say, 100, to be paid to a service charitythat the legal advice will contain reference to issues of last resort and proportionality. Such issues did not feature in the legal advice as published by the Government. It is perfectly clear now to those who have looked at the matter in the round that the Attorney-General's approach was, shall we say, on a rather more qualified basis than has been asserted on his behalf.
	I have no doubt that Parliament has every right to hold the Prime Minister to account. That is why legislation of the kind envisaged in our amendment would, in my judgment, be in the public interest.
	It is inevitable on occasions such as this, because of the wide range of subjects covered, that there will be a certain amount of selection; but I do not think that a debate on foreign affairs at this time could do other than give some consideration to the possibility of progress in the middle east. The change in leadership of the Palestiniansalong with, it could be argued, President Bush's second and final termseems to offer unprecedented opportunities for progress, but that will require strong and even-handed re-engagement with the conflict. President Bush recently reaffirmed his commitment to a democratic, independent and viable Palestinian state. We in the House of Commons are entitled to request and require the Prime Minister to hold him to his word.
	The bombings must stop, but so must the building of the wall and the building of settlements on Palestinian land. All are forbidden under international law, and international law is most often respected when it is applied without discrimination. I have no doubthere I echo what was said by the hon. Member for Mid-Sussexthat enduring peace will only be built on dialogue. A settlement that is unilaterally imposed by Israel, of which disengagement from Gaza is only one component, will not resemble the road map, will not bring stability to the region and will further radicalise Palestinian opinion. Lasting solutions cannot be imposed; they can only be agreed.
	I take issue with the Government on Darfur. Last week, to the disappointment of many, the Security Council once again failed to take decisive action. The situation has deteriorated over the past few weeks: violence has increased again, and more than 150,000 people are short of food, water and medicines. Yet the United Nations Security Council can only agree to monitor compliance with previous resolutions. We should be arguing with far greater vigour for action to force all the warring parties in Darfur to adhere to their ceasefire commitments. When will this country take that crisis seriously? Some 100,000 lives may already have been lost.
	We should not allow ourselves to get hung up on the question of whether this is or is not genocide. I understand that certain legal obligations might spring from a determination that what has taken place is indeed genocide, but let us leave that to one side for the moment. Let us look at the nature of the tragedy. Rape, disengagement, expulsion and ethnic cleansing have taken place under the nose of the international community, yet what the Security Council can best do is to monitor compliance with previous resolutions. It is shameful, and our Government should be robust in persuading the international community and those responsible for such matters to be far more engaged than hitherto. Robust and targeted sanctions are urgently required. There should be an arms embargo, an assets freeze and a travel ban on the leaders of the Sudanese Government. The no-fly zone should be strictly enforced, the peacekeeping forces offered by the African Union should be strengthened, and deadlines for progress should be imposed.
	Let me turn to Iran. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, has to be dealt with through a variety of strategies, including counter-proliferation, containment and, yes, hard-edged engagement as well. That is why I welcome the progress made by the so-called EU 3, and in this regard the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and his French and German colleagues deserve congratulation on their efforts. There are some questions about the agreement to suspend uranium enrichment; none the less, it is a step in the right direction. When these long-term negotiations begin next month, the EU 3 should press hard for a permanent end to enrichment and reprocessing activities, and for much closer monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
	As I said, there must be hard-edged engagement, but it must be accompanied by economic and political incentives. I welcome the Foreign Secretary's saying that any military strike against Iran is inconceivable. He is perfectly correct, of course, because any such strike would provoke fierce retaliation and could generate dangerous instability in the middle east and, indeed, in Iraq. However, I cannot rid myself of some apprehension at the suggestion percolating down from Washington that Israel might be seen as a surrogate for military action on behalf of the United States.

Menzies Campbell: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which is consistent with my general case that we should maintain these connections because of the tremendous contribution that they have made in the past. This is not an argument about nostalgia or an argument for the old comrades. It is an argument for ensuring that what we retain is effective and continues to make the contribution to the Army in the future that it has made in the past.
	I would like to say a few words about reform of the United Nations. The Secretary-General's high-level panel is due to report on 1 December. The UN's institutional framework inevitably reflects the political and strategic thinking of the time of its formationnow more than 50 years ago. No one could argue against the proposition that the UN needs to be modernised and made more effective and representative. The Security Council has to be expanded in a way that reflects the new political realities, but there must also be clear rules about the use of force.
	In a speech in Chicago in 1999it is, in my view, not sufficiently well regarded or referred tothe Prime Minister made a powerful case for the right of intervention where there was systematic abuse of human rights. It was consistent with his approach to Kosovoan approach that I and my colleagues wholly supported. The Secretary-General of the UN himself said in a telling phrase that we should somehow be less concerned with the sovereignty of nations and more concerned with the sovereignty of individuals.
	The argument for a right of intervention will undoubtedly run and be embraced: references will be made to it in the high-level panel's report. The criteria that need to be taken into account are the seriousness of what is taking place; the absence of alternatives; whether intervention is truly a last resort; the primary purpose; the proportionality of the means; the likely outcome; and the authority required. I offer those criteria in the clear understanding that they were not taken into account when the decision was made to take military action against Iraq.
	Two relationships will dominate foreign affairs for the foreseeable future: our relationship with Europe and our relationship with the United States. I want to reaffirm that we should understand and appreciate that the European Union has promoted and reinforced peace and prosperity, stability and democracy throughout Europe. We too often forget that in recent history, eight of the EU's new members were Soviet satellites, and three of its older membersSpain, Portugal and Greecewere ruled by dictatorships. I have no doubt whatever that our prosperity is underpinned by membership of what is now the largest internal market in the world, with some 450 million people and 20 per cent. of the world's gross domestic product.
	The constitutionor, more correctly, the treatythat the Prime Minister signed a few weeks ago in Rome is an important step to facilitate the operation of an enlarged European Union. We should also acknowledge that the most recent wave of enlargement is an extraordinary achievement. Through the rigorous application of the Copenhagen criteria on social, economic and political concerns, the Union has helped national Governments extend to many millions more people the benefits of democracy, free trade, good governance, human rights and civil liberties. We will support the Bill that the Government intend to introduce to give effect to their obligations under that treaty. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) said yesterday, we are disappointed that there is no clear timetable for a referendum. We have heard the Foreign Secretary opining that a referendum might be held in 2006, but nothing firm has been stated.
	Having introduced the Bill, the Government should then argue the case. It is certainly true that the case for a negative vote has already begun, but the case for an affirmative vote will begin to be effective only when the Government put their shoulders to the wheel and encourage, perhaps even instruct, all Ministers at all levels to show an enthusiasm for Europe, which has not been notable, shall we say, in recent weeks and months.
	I shall now move on to discuss transatlantic relations. I wonder how it is, when Europe and America have so much in common both culturally and politically, that transatlantic relations have become so fragile. The explanation probably lies in the fact that as the US has grown in military and economic power, Europe has struggled to keep up. For America, NATO and other alliances are a matter of choice, but for Europe and the UK, multilateralism remains a necessity.
	On this side of the Atlantic, we have failed to acknowledge the profound shift in American psychology that has taken place since 9/11. A hard-edged crusading America has recently been endorsed by its citizens. President Bush is not an aberration: the attitude and outlook of America have been transformed. But that does not deflect me from the overwhelming belief that Europe must maintain a strong alliance with the US. For the UK, too, it is not a simple choice between one or the other.
	We must fully acknowledge the fundamental importance of Europe to our modern-day prosperity, stability and security. Equally, we should be under no illusion as to the force of American pragmatism and the determined pursuit of its own national interest. I believe that, unless we are fully engaged with Europe, our influence in America will inevitably be diminished. A Europe that presents a united front will be far more influential than an old friendeven one to whom the award of the congressional medal has been madetrying to call in favours.
	I am in no doubt that it is in the strategic and economic interest of Britain to build a Europe that is constructively Atlanticist. We must have a genuine US-European partnership of influence and we must try to persuade America to re-engage with the international community. We must try to convince the White House that American security will be not enhanced, but undermined, by unilateralism, the exercise of crusading power and the doctrine of preventive war.
	We should call on the US to reinvigorate its support for the framework of international law and human rights that it was so instrumental in creating. The war against Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib have all undermined America's international standing. We expect America to adhere to the principles on which it was founded: liberty, justice and the rule of law. We should miss no opportunity, working within a frank and candid relationship, to say that as often as we can.
	I want to conclude by making a brief reference to remarks reported as having been made by the Leader of the House about the country being safer under Labour and, by implication, not safe under any other political party. To put it most charitably, I would have to say that those remarks were ill judged and should be withdrawn at the first available opportunity. I believe that they are offensive and provide a hostage to fortune. If, God forbid, some terrorist action takes place with loss of life, an assertion that Britain can be safe only under one political party may come to haunt anyone who has made it.
	I also want to say, with some sensitivity, that it is not that long ago that some Labour Members of Parliament refused to supporteither through abstention or by voting against themthe renewal of prevention against terrorism provisions for Northern Ireland. They thought that they had good reasons for doing so. I, for one, and many others, never accused them of being soft on terrorism. Those of us who regard it as our duty to challenge any legislation that may have the effect of detracting from the civil rights and individual liberties of any citizen of the UK do not view it as acceptable to be traduced in this way.
	We will examine every Government proposal on its own merits. We will exercise our judgment and scrutinise the Government. That, after all, is why our constituents send us here. It is what they invite us to carry out in their name. Any legislative proposals to deal with the problem of terrorism will be examined in that spirit, as will any proposals relating to foreign affairs and defence.

David Winnick: The hon. Gentleman expresses his point of view, which is quite likely to be held by a number of his colleagues. That is fair enough, but if that approach had always been adopted in the past, we would never have changed anything. We should not be ashamed to say that one of this country's greatest blessings is Parliament, and everything that flows from the House of Commons and our parliamentary democracy. That is what I am concerned about. When I show people around, I take as much pride as anyone else would in emphasising what I have just said about the great benefit to the country that this House provides, but that does not mean that every form of tradition and ceremony should be retained forever, as the hon. Gentleman clearly believes.

David Winnick: I see that the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) agrees with that, as he is nodding in approval. It is also certain, and should be borne in mind, that when Saddam finally went, he would have been succeeded by one of his murderous sons.
	However, the longer the occupation lasts, the more it becomes part of the problem and not the solution. The vast majority of Iraqis are not involved in terrorist violence. I am sure that most of them oppose what is being done, allegedly in their name, but the events of the past few months have meant that we are losing the hearts and minds of those non-violent people. I think that most Iraqis were very pleased that Saddam was overthrown, but that they are very unhappy about what has happened in the past four to six months.
	Of course, the situation is difficult. Many American soldiers have lost their lives, as have some of our troops. The fact remains, however, that the sooner we find a way to end the occupationparticularly the western occupationthe better. Iraq has a proud tradition, and Iraqis are a proud people. They no more want to be occupied indefinitely than would UK or US citizens. I am sure that that is the view of the British Government.
	I want to pay particular attention to the middle east and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is very good news that the outgoing US Secretary of State is visiting the region and meeting both Israelis and Palestinians. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is also there, which is why, as we have been told, he is not in the House today.
	The planned evacuation from Gaza is welcome, of course, but the unilateral manner of its inception was not. Moreover, it has been stated that the Gaza evacuation was going to be the end of the matter. Instead of being the beginning of the evacuation of Israeli forces from the post-1967 territories, it was assumed that the Gaza evacuation over the next 12 to 18 months would be the end of the story. Unfortunately, that assumption was endorsed by President Bush.
	The House should bear it in mind that the population of the Gaza strip totals about 7,500, whereas the population of the illegal settlementsand the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife reminded the House that the settlements were indeed illegaltotals about 400,000 settlers. The strong impression is that they will remain.
	Dov Weisglass, the Israeli Government's senior adviser, has stated:
	When you freeze (the peace) process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the (Palestinian) refugees.
	He went on to say that all that had been done
	with a (US) presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress.
	Inevitably, the suspicion is that it is the aim of the present Israeli Government to go no further than the evacuation of Gaza.

David Winnick: I apologise to my hon. Friend. I agree that it would be useful if that person, who is clearly held in high esteem by Palestinians, were released and could play his part in the peace process.
	The price for Israel's creation has been paid by the Palestinians, and it has been heavy indeed. They were not responsible for what happened to the Jews and one can therefore understand the plight of people who have been dispossessed over half a century. They live in refugee camps and their existence is abysmal. Day by day, they recognise that life for them and their children will not get any better. We understand why Israel came into existence. Should we no less try to understand the position of the Palestinians and the heavy price that they have paid? Justice cries out for a sovereign Palestinian state in the occupied territories. That means that Israel must content itself within the pre-1967 borders. Within those borders, of course, it should have as much right as any other sovereign state to defend itself.
	The settlements in the west bank must go, like those in Gaza. We must move away from the feeling in negotiations that the Palestinians can be given a piece of land here and there and should feel grateful. When we talk about a viable sovereign Palestinian state, we mean precisely that. The Palestinians cannot be expected to be grateful for anything less. They argue that even if they were given the occupied territories, Israel would still have 78 per cent. of the original Palestine, leaving 22 per cent. for a sovereign state.
	Much is made of the fact that the Palestinians should accept the right of Israel to exist. Of course that is true, and the PLO has done so. However, Israel also has a responsibilityand we hope that this will emerge from future negotiationsnot necessarily to encourage Jews to go to Israel. Common sense dictates that if Jews were actively encouraged to go to Israel, there would be even greater pressure on land, although I do not know how many Jews living in the free world in democracies would want to go and live in Israel, even if there was a peaceful outcome. A balance must be struck. If we have justice for Jews in the form of the state of Israel, it is essential that we have justice for the Palestinians.
	If there one country above all that can apply effective pressure on Israel it is the United States. That is why so many of us were disappointed recently by some of President Bush's remarks. If, in his second term, there is a change of mind in the White House, it will need a genuine wish to work with other countries to achieve a settlementas we saw when his father was president and also under President Clintonand to bring about a viable sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel. That would be for the benefit not only of the Palestinians, but of the world order itself.

Kenneth Clarke: This was one of the most cynical Queen's Speeches that I have heard presented to Parliament since I have been here, and that is in a competitive field. It was plainly intended to be a pre-election Queen's Speech and is loaded with huge numbers of Bills on crime and security, to add to the vast amount of legislation that we have passed on that subject in this Parliament. Indeed, many of the titles of those promised Bills seem to repeat the content of previous legislation. It is clearly a chosen political strategy to play on the fears of crime and security in this country and to present a huge programme of legislation in response.
	That strategy was expressed most disreputably by the Leader of the House when he tried to suggest that if anybody had reservations about key parts of the Queen's Speech, they would be being soft on terrorism and, therefore, people could feel safer with a Labour Government. That is a half-baked imitation of the successful presidential campaign by George W. Bush in the United States, but it is only the Government's latest attempt to try to change the subject matter of the debate in the run up to the election.
	The Government are trying to change the subject matter away from Iraq and the associated international problems. It is not the first time that they have tried to do so. They tried to change the subject for most of the summer. Over that period, we were treated to a series of initiatives on the reform of the public services, which was supposed to be the agenda that would make the British look to home and away from the problems of abroad in the run up to the election. Sadly for the Government, that theme has played very badly with the Labour party, so it vanished as a subject from the Labour party conference and also as a subject for the Queen's Speech for this winter. Now the British public are expected to be afraid of terrorism and look to the Labour party to tackle that domestic problem. The Government hope that the British people will thus look away from the problems in Iraq and elsewhere, although many of us feel that those problems might be feeding the terrorism that we face.
	I think that the Government may get it wrongand they are not the only politicians who hope that the next election will not be about Iraq. The next election could still be quite dominated by Iraq, because we do not know what fresh, horrific events could emerge from the middle east, affecting our troops and drawing our attention, between now and next May. Iraq keeps forcing itself back on to the agenda because it is such a huge and horrendous problem.
	We are all assuming that the election will be on 5 Mayindeed, the date has practically been announced and put on the Order Paperso we know that a large number of the Bills in the Queen's Speech have not the slightest prospect of becoming law before we go into the election; they are mere decoration, designed to occupy the time of the Chamber between now and the campaign next May. The horrific events that may occurI hope notbetween now and next May, and the continued damage to the Prime Minister's reputation and to the British public's trust in the Prime Minister, could still force him away from his chosen date of 5 May, and he may be driven into a further year in the hope that he can get the agenda back where he wishes.
	I want to discuss Iraq, however, as I think that it will dominate our affairs

Kenneth Clarke: The issue does not depend on particular personalities. Plenty of Members, from all three parties, are strongly opposed to Iraq and they have struck a chord with the majority of the public; every time a fresh step occurs in Iraq, it reminds them of the circumstances in which the invasion was launched.
	Like everybody else, I shall not go back over my reasons for having been so bitterly opposed to the war. I remain as strongly opposed to that decision as I was; it is one of the worst mistakes that any British Government have made in such a field since the Suez adventure, and its consequences could be far more damaging than the damage that flowed to British interests from the mistaken attempt to invade the Suez canal zone. However, we must all now accept that the argument has moved on from whether it was justified to invade Iraq and that, when a general election comes, we shall all have difficulty in addressing precisely what should happen to produce a satisfactory, or the least damaging, outcome to the problem that we have created.
	By May next year, we shall still be deep in a political quagmire in Iraq and the middle east. Whoever wins the next election will have to deal with a situation that could last for several years, in which British troops and British interests are committed to a continuing attempt to resolve the problem in Iraq and to avoid the worst possible outcomea really deep fissure between the Muslim world and the west, where the British would be cast as one of the villains of the piece for having got into that situation. It is extremely difficult for anyone to set out with even the slightest clarity what is likely to happen to lead us to that successful outcome.
	As one of the most bitter opponents of the invasion, I do not think that the British can simply concentrate on getting our troops out. We cannot set a deadline. Indeed, it would not be reputable, having got ourselves into this chaos, to say that as we do not know what to do next, we shall simply contrive an opportunity to bring the troops home. We all realise that it is in our interests, and the interests of all our allies, that we continue to provideas best we cansecurity in Iraq until some stable and satisfactory outcome is reached, but that could take us a very long time.
	From listening to the Government, I have not received the slightest impression that they have really thought through how they are going to reach that outcome. I do not criticise the brevity of the reference to Iraq in the Queen's Speech, because it is largely a ritual document; it merely talks about our need to maintain security and to help to ensure that the elections are held in January. I listened to the Secretary of State for Defence read his speech. It might have contained something; he gave the impression that he read it with perfect clarity, but I do not think that he had read it before he regaled the House with it. It contained nothing whatever about precisely where we were going in Iraq and what the Government thought would happen when we get to the elections.
	In the United States and in the United Kingdom, we are continually offered the promise of false dawnan end to the difficulties that are going on. First, the arrest of Saddam Hussein was to launch the denouement and the move towards success. Then the appointment of the Interim Government of Mr. Allawi was a watershed, after which the whole situation was to improve. The danger is that all we are being told by the British Government, and, as far as I can see, by the American Government, too, that on 30 January there will be an election and that a new Iraqi Government will emerge. Thereafter, presumably, a more satisfactory denouement will begin.
	I hope that is true. I hope that the third thing proves correct, but I have absolutely no confidence that anything of that kind will occur. I hope that the election is held in reasonable and satisfactory circumstances, but that must still be very, very doubtful. I have no ideanor does anybody elsewhat kind of Government are supposed to emerge from that election in January, and I have no confident expectation that a peaceful debate about a new constitution for the independent Iraq will be satisfactorily progressed by a new Iraqi Government once they are in power, if indeed they succeed in taking power after the election.
	When I ask myself where we are going and what we should be doing to reach a satisfactory outcome, I am extremely cautious about my own forecasts. If anybody knows how to move from where we are now to a stable, reasonably democratic and liberal Iraq, which might live in peace with its neighbours, that man or woman is the best qualified person to take the Nobel peace prize with bar. The problem is almost impenetrable, but what I am sure of is that our policy so far cannot continue, because it is making little progress.
	I agree with everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, said about the woeful lack of planning and the appalling errors that we made when we first took over. I also agree with all the criticisms that have been made, and which should certainly be made again, about where we have got so far. We are preparing for that election with a series of battles to achieve control of key cities, in the belief, as we heard from the Secretary of State in one of his few unscripted moments, that the grateful civilians will stream back to Falluja to take part in the election at the end of January. No doubt other cities will be conquered in the same way. The methods being used are heavy-handed and not calculated to win the automatic adherence of the population to supporting acceptable people.
	Let us recall the real policy when the invasion was launched; it is now reasonably clear. I said at the time that it had nothing whatever to do with weapons of mass destruction. That claim was bogus and anyone fortunate enough to have had contact with neo-conservative Americans knew that weapons of mass destruction and UN resolutions had absolutely nothing to do with it. The purpose of the invasion was to change the regime in the belief that, democratically, an election would result that would produce a pro-American and pro-Israeli Government, preferably led by Mr. Ahmad Chalabi, or someone very like him, who had been in exile in the United States. I do not think that an election will produce that, and I hope that we are braced for that.
	I hope that there is a new flexibility in our political policy that will enable us to respond to whatever happens when the election comes, when the Government will certainly have more legitimacy, because it will be elected, than the present Interim Government, which still contains far too many people who were living in exile before the invasion took place and does not contain any significant member who was opposed to the invasion or represents more hostile elements. We must have a policy that prepares for the election producing a much wider spread of opinion. It will produce people who are probably not regarded as terribly sympathetic to western interests, and there will be a strong clerical element in some parts of the elected representatives.
	Far more than hitherto, we must be prepared to embrace, in our contemplation of the kind of Iraq that we will accept and protect until it is truly independent, a collection of people who are not the kind of people whom we would have voted for. For the first time, our politics will have to embrace serious dialogue and seriously take on board the views of those who are anti-American, probably more than they were, and anti-western, those who are clerical and have links with the world around Iraq, and those who will be slightly troublesome. I hope that we are prepared to take on board the fact that we must consider those people in our politics, and we must accept an outcome in Iraq that will probably be second best in the opinion of most hon. Members and would certainly be regarded as unacceptable by American neo-conservatives if they had known that that would happen when they embarked on their course.
	The solution must come from the Iraqiswe all agree that nowand I look forward to the debates where the Kurds, the Sunni and the Shi'a talk about a constitution that is mutually acceptable to them all. Any attempt to impose a solution by the Americansor the alliance, if we prefer to call it thatwould be extremely counter-productive. We must accept that we must try to eliminate violence and maintain security in what is a confused and worrying situation, as the different Iraqi elements try to produce what they have to achieve if they are to keep the country in one piece at all.
	This parliamentary Session will certainly go beyond the key date of 30 January. I trust that, between now and 30 January, the Government will give more thought to what they are doing than the Secretary of State betrayed in what he said today. Before we get to our election in May, we will see the newly elected Iraqi Parliament in action, and we will see what the behaviour of the Americans, ourselves and our allies is around them. That will call for far more flexibility and far less intent to support certain elements in the Iraqi community than we have shown so far. As for our military activity, I will repeat what I have said on previous occasions: we will require a far more politically intelligent approach to the use of the military in support of whatever happens that is positive and against whatever happens that is negative, while that constitutional debate goes on.
	We still seem locked in a belief, certainly on the other side of the Atlantic, that by military power alone, we can impose a democracy of the kind that seems desirable and that, if there are setbacks, we need to have a battle in which we are the victors. It is beyond doubt that the coalition forces in Iraq could be the victors in any battle against any organised military force that could be mustered by anyone in the entire middle east. So far, we have emerged from most of those battle honours with political defeat, and we will continue to do so unless we improve our approach. As I have said before, that is one British contribution that we could make. The British have a longer history of dealing with the politics and sensitivities of terrorism that arises out of support from a hostile population, and our approach to things should be given altogether much greater weight in what the alliance does than has been the case so far.

Kenneth Clarke: I have been a supporter of every military action engaged in by every British Government of any kind since I have been a Member, until we reached the invasion of Iraq. I was a supporter of what we did in Bosnia and Herzegovina, although I had some doubts about it at the time. I was certainly a supporter of what we did in Kosovo, although the legality of such action should be improved, as was said by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell). I was a supporter of the invasion of Afghanistan because we were attacking the place where the people who had organised the 9/11disaster were located. However, we are not out of the woods in any of those cases. If we think that just the military action produces an answer, let us remember that it has not done so in any of those cases.
	We are all talking about our continued involvement in Bosnia, which is no nearer being a completely viable independent state than when we arrived. The state of affairs in Kosovo is fairly dire, and people are only being saved from murder by the fact that we continue to have troops there, partly because we went into Kosovo in alliance with the Kosovo Liberation Army, who we knew were rather dodgy people to be allied with before we went in, but we were reluctant to commit troops on the ground and they had troops who were willing to go. We went into Afghanistan in alliance with the Northern Alliance, which was well known to have some connections with the drugs trade. We are now presiding over a democratically elected regime, but the democratically elected people still have a hint of warlordism about them. There is no proper control in parts of the country, and we have made the country a haven for the production of opium, which is in part flowing through Bosnia, no doubt, to this country.
	We have a record of intervening; we do not have a record of political triumph in the places that may have been occupied as a result. Although all those cases were justified, the invasion of Iraq was neither justified nor legal. We have created an even bigger mess in Iraq, and it will take a very long time to get out.
	I have given my tentative thoughts, which anyone's thoughts are bound to be, on what will happen in Iraq next, but hardly anyone discusses that on either side of the Atlantic, and the Government's contribution to thoughts about what will happen in Iraq next are about the most limited that I usually hear on the subject. My biggest regret on post-war Iraqwhere we are nowis what it tells us about the state of the American alliance and the British role in it. I am strong supporter of the Atlantic alliance, which must be at the heart of our foreign policy. I believe that, in return for our adherence to the Atlantic alliance, we expect to have some influence on the policy, events and conduct of affairs because we make a valuable contribution.
	So far as I can see, the fact is that the British Government have had next to no influence of any kind since the occupation of Iraq was completed. I cannot believe that any very serious attention has been paid to the contribution of our Prime Minister. We are there as apparently willing supporters and we provide extremely valuable troops, who are doing an outstanding job in impossible circumstances, but I detect no input of British diplomatic experience, British political skill or any particularly British contribution to the political evolution of that country.
	What that tells us about the Atlantic alliancethis brings me to the other subjects that I will touch on more brieflyis that an Atlantic alliance that is just dependent on an American arm and a British arm, so far as we are concerned, is not sufficient. The Atlantic alliance is a US-European alliance, and if we wish to have influence in future, there is absolutely no doubt that, unless we have closer foreign policy and security co-operation between the members of the European Union, so that there can be a coherent European voice and contribution to the Atlantic alliance, we simply will not have the influence on the world's superpower that we would wish.
	That takes me on to the other subject in the Queen's Speech that I wanted to touch on. I welcome the fact that a Bill has appeared to allow us to legislate to ratify the new constitutional treaty and to pave the way for the referendum that will eventually decide the matter. Fairly well founded leaks suggest that there was a huge argument in the Government about whether they wished to put the Bill into the programme at all. So far, the leaks have not been good enoughthey soon will be, given the way that this Government brief the pressto let us know how they intend to handle the issue now that they have put it in the legislative programme. Will the Bill have its Second Reading before Christmas and will there be a serious attempt to put it into law, or will we just have a day's debate sometime after Christmas with the whole thing falling in the May election? I imagine that the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will argue that whenever they next get the chance to meet in the same country and the same room and get on to talking about it.
	I hope that, once the Bill is introduced, we will get on to deciding on it and giving it parliamentary approval before the election is held. We can then move on, as everybody in the House claims to want to do, to a referendum that will endorse or not endorse what Parliament has decided. I realise that it is pointless, but I wish to put on record my total hostility to referendums of all kinds in a parliamentary democracy. I have against my record the fact that I was persuadedI very much regret itto agree to a referendum on the single currency. In a competitive field, I think that it is one of the worst mistakes, if not the worst mistake, that I have ever made in politics.

Kenneth Clarke: This is not the opportunity to think of better claims.
	The Prime Minister's decision to call a referendum was one of the weakest decisions that he has ever made. He publicly made it clear that he was totally hostile to the whole idea of holding a referendum on the issue. He was persuaded to hold one, and I fear that it will be a lottery. However, the debate might be improved if Parliament has at least debated the issue and decided that, in the normal course of events, it would have ratified the treaty.
	I will support the new treaty. If we ever get to the referendum, I will no doubt campaign for a yes vote. It is a matter of huge importance so, if we are to have a debate here and a referendum, I trust that people will realise the crucial importance that the treaty has in giving this country a satisfactory role at all.
	I always expectedI thought everybody didthat we would have a new constitutional treaty if we could successfully complete the enlargement of the European Union. Its enlargement is one of the most historic events we have experienced in recent times. The EU remains a political undertaking even though the politics have somewhat changed. It started with the intention of making sure that the old European wars never reoccurred and that we never went to war with each other again. Thank God, those wars are now a long way behind us. The EU is now creating, however, a democratic, liberal political cohesion across the whole continent. That is a huge achievement.
	Someone has already said that fascist Spain was made democratic and liberal by being brought into the EU, and a similar process occurred in Portugal after Salazar and in Greece after the colonels. The cold war is over and eight former totalitarian states, plus the two Mediterranean ones, are now being brought from totalitarian rule into a liberal democracy on a European agenda. Even the debates about Ukraine, which form the background to this debate, are in part about the division in Ukraine and whether the election has actually been won by liberal, parliamentary, pro-western democrats who look to the EU as their aspiration to try to create the foundation for the state that they want. All that is a huge achievement for the EU and underlines the wisdom of our involvement in it as it tackles all the issues well beyond the capacity of the individual nation state to solve itself. When nation states pool their sovereignty with each other in the common interest, they can help to create a whole new polity across the continent of Europe.
	The EU has moved from 15 to 25 member states, and the old constitutional treaties never worked very well for 15. That means that we need to make the great leap forward to make sure that we have a workable constitution for the new enlarged European Union.
	The treaty would be welcomed by British politicians of all sides if only they adhered to the sentiments that most of them used to express until about five or 10 years ago. The treaty makes it clearer than ever before that the Union is a union of nation states. I was never federalist, and I think that this is the end of federalist ambitions in the Union. More power is put in the hands of the Council of Ministers and the Governments of the nation states, who are the principal gainers from what is set out. The treaty makes clearer than ever before the division between European competence, covering those areas in which one nation state on its own cannot achieve as much as it can by acting in co-operation with others, and purely national competence, which remains within the sovereignty of each parliament.
	I find the debate in this country rather bewildering. Some 25 nation states have just agreed on the new constitution, but there is the suggestion that we should perhaps take this moment to step away from this and say to the other 24 that we might start renegotiating other issues involving the repatriation of powers going back to the original foundation of the Union. That strikes me as a somewhat uncertain undertaking that is unlikely to achieve success.
	Those of my right hon. and hon. Friends who are Eurosceptic find themselves with some curious allies. One or two leading members of my party went out of their way to say how much they agreed with Robert Kilroy-Silk. They could not understand why he was causing so much disruption shortly after the European elections. More embarrassingly, they find themselves in alliance with the more breakaway factions of the French socialists, who have decided to go hostile in their referendum for totally different reasons.
	I met Mr. Laurent Fabius recently and asked him why he was causing so much difficulty. He is an extremely distinguished French socialist and makes me look like a Eurosceptic. He is a very pro-European French former Prime Minister, and he told me that the treaty was not European enough. Indeed, in France, it is known as la britannique, because it puts in place a form of the EU that has been long argued for by the British and the Scandinavians and is now argued for by the new central and eastern European members. As someone has already said, it marks the end of any dreams of Franco-German hegemony or of a federalist superstate that anybody once harboured. I hope that we will make progress, have a proper and sensible debate, produce a workable solution and settle our destiny in Europe for all times. I think that I have made it clear that I will vote in favour of the Bill if and when the Government ever have the courage to bring it to the Floor of the House.
	I end on a note of discomfort with a Government who, it seems, have failed to give us any sensible lead in Iraq and certainly, to a pro-European, any sensible lead on Europe over the past few years. It is an irony that the most pro-European Prime Minister that this country has had since Edward Heath has, through fear, indecision and hedging about, so totally mismanaged the European issue from the moment he took office. I hope that he does not continue to do so. If we are to settle the constitutional problem and our role in Europe so that we can start to build a proper relationship in the north Atlantic alliance, people of other parties and members of the Labour party other than the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister should take a hand both in the House and in the referendum. I trust that we shall reach a satisfactory outcome.
	I conclude as I started. The subjects of Iraq and Europe have been tucked away in the Queen's Speech, because the Government did not want to slip them in and do not want to talk about them sensibly at all. Between now and next May, we are to be subjected to a whole lot of second-rate rubbish that tries to pretend to the public that it is all necessary to save them from the wave of crime and the wave of terrorist attacks to which Conservatives and Liberal Democrats might otherwise leave them vulnerable. That is not worthy of the great events with which we are struggling. I deeply hope that, come next May, somebody with more purpose is put in charge of events in this country and abroad.

Jeremy Corbyn: It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). I admired the admirable and stoic way in which he ploughed on through all the Tory cheers for his policies on Europe. I agreed with most of what he said about Iraq and I cannot forget the valuable contribution that he made to the debate on 18 March 2003 in the run-up to the war on Iraq. He showed in that speech that he understood the issues facing the middle east and the world, which have not been made safer or better by policies followed on Iraq, but considerably worse. I sadly did not agree with several other points that he made, but they will have to wait for another day.
	The right hon. and learned Gentleman was right that we have been presented with a Queen's Speech that talks heavily about security in the run-up to a general election. Security and people's rights to live in peace are obviously important, but have the policies of the United States and Britain since September 2001 made the world safer and better, or more dangerous and insecure? The invasion of AfghanistanI did not support it, although many of my colleagues who subsequently opposed the war in Iraq didremoved the Taliban regime, but it did not capture bin Laden or stop drug production. Indeed, drug production has increased a great deal since then and the warlords in Afghanistan are pretty powerful. Will that be a place from which concord, peace and safety will emanate or a likely source of future problems? I suspect that it will be the latter.
	We have failed to engage with and understand the feelings of many poor people throughout the middle east and the wider globe, and have instead gone down the road of following narrow-minded and ignorant American policies. If anyone has read documents from the Project for a New American Century, which is made up of the people who surround George Bush, they will know that those people's arrogance and ignorance are terrifying, as are the dangers that that will bring to the world.
	We were told that the reason for the invasion of Iraq was to remove weapons of mass destruction, but that was altered to regime change and later changed to developing a new society and democracy in Iraq. There will obviously be a new society in Iraq and I hope that there will be a form of democracy there in the future. However, many people who opposed Saddam Hussein's regime for many years were also sceptical, if not outright opponents, of the American and British invasion because of its illegal nature. They are also hostile to the current US presence in Iraq.
	Although the Prime Minister seems to be unwilling to engage in debate on the article in The Lancet, the report by the International Committee of the Red Cross or other reports about the extent of the death rate in Iraq and the mayhem caused since the invasion, it is time that we had some openness. How many people have died? How many children have been killed due to unexploded cluster bombs? How many people are suffering the effects of depleted uranium and how many civilians died in Falluja and the other cities?
	The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe is absolutely right that peace and democracy will not be brought about by militarily bombing one city after another into submission. Many people do not support the political or religious views of those who are termed insurgents, but they are being driven into their arms by the policies followed in Iraq by Britain and the United States. Surely we need a national exit strategy and an inward strategy for reputable forces under United Nations command to help future developments in Iraq. I suspect that we have not heard the end of Iraq by any manner of means. We will rue the day that we invaded the country. Unless a clear exit strategy is put forward, I suspect that the reported comments from British high command that British troops will remain there for decades are, unfortunately, probably true. That will not have a good effect throughout the world.
	Every time that things go badly in Iraq, an announcement is made in the White House or somewhere else around the world that a peace process and policy for the middle east should be developed. Everyone wants and signs up to that, and I was pleased that the Prime Minister and the President were prepared to discuss a policy to bring about peace in the middle east. However, that will not be achieved without serious criticism of the way in which Israel has behavedand behavestowards the Palestinians and some understanding of the feelings of ordinary Palestinians and people throughout the middle east about what is going on. The situation is not a war of equals between equal Israeli and Palestinian states, but a conflict between the first-world state of Israel and people living in Palestine with a third-world standard of living and outlook.
	I have visited Israel and Palestine several times and talked to Palestinians who are not anti-Jewish and not necessarily against the state of Israel. However, they are certainly opposed to the way in which their parents or grandparents were thrown out of their houses at the time at which Israel was founded, and to the use of road blocks, the humiliation, the occupation, the invasion, the settlements and everything that goes with that. If one asks them the hard question of whether they think that suicide bombing is a good thing, most say, No, it is not. They oppose it as wrong because it kills innocent civilians, causes many problems and leads to retribution. However, if one presses them further, they all say that they understand why people are driven to take such desperate action.
	If we are to bring about peace in the region, as I really hope that we can, we could begin by asking Israel to start obeying international law. Rafts of UN resolutions condemn Israel, and the United States has used its veto against other resolutions to prevent them from being carried. The International Court of Justice has made a decision against the construction of the wall. Israel is undertaking the illegal construction of a nuclear reactor and the development of nuclear weapons. Although I was glad when Mordecai Vanunu was eventually released, he is still effectively under house arrest and denied the right to travel because of Israel's strange behaviour towards people who tell the truth about what is going on in the country. If we are to bring about peace, I hope that we can start to develop an understanding of the needs of the Palestinian people and the way in which such peace could come about.
	When I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick), I made the point that Marwan Barghouti, an important leader of the Fatah movement, is still in prison in Israel. It is symbolic of the country's whole approach towards an electoral process or change that it will not allow him to leave. I, like most Palestinians, want elections to take place in Palestine, but it is difficult to understand how an election could take place given that the area is divided between Gaza and the west bank; that Gaza is bisected by military roads and settlements, so it is impossible to move freely around it; that the west bank is scattered with settlements joined by military roads, meaning that movement is impossible; and that Israel controls all ingress and exits from Palestine. Real international pressure must be put on Israel merely to allow an electoral process to take place because there will otherwise be no solution or peace in the region.
	Our debate is taking place in the year before the non-proliferation treaty review conference, which is due next summer. The conference is important by any stretch of the imagination. We are rightly worried about nuclear proliferation and what has happened in Iran and North Korea, and everyone is apparently keen for India and Pakistan to sign up to the non-proliferation treaty, the test ban treaty and all other controls on the proliferation and spread of nuclear weaponsfine. The problem is that the non-proliferation treaty requiresit is not an optionthe five declared nuclear weapons states of Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States to divest themselves ultimately of their nuclear weapons. What we have instead is the development of star wars by the United States and the active consideration by our Ministry of Defence of the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons. Small wonder that other countries around the world say, If the five permanent members of the Security Council, which are also the five declared nuclear weapons states, continue to develop or to hold nuclear weapons themselves, is it any wonder that we want to develop them as well?
	It would be wonderful if we could go to the NPT conference with a declaration that there will be no new generation of British nuclear weapons and that instead we will lead the way in bringing about peace and disarmament. The problems that face the world are insecurity, poverty and all the problems that go with them. Nuclear weapons were not much help to the United States when the World Trade Centre was attacked. They are not much use in alleviating poverty and insecurity. I hope that there is a change of heart and direction.
	There is much else that I could say, but I want to mention just two other things. The debate has been dominated by Iraq, the middle east and, to some extent, arms issues and defence procurement. The Prime Minister makes much of the problems facing Africa and the need for his Commission for Africa to be successful in bringing about hope and changes in the world. We live on a small island as part of a very rich continent that uses up a lot of natural resources. Generally speaking, the population of Europe has a far higher standard of living than most people in most parts of the world. The United States uses up far more natural resources than anyone else and has a deeply divided nation in which a proportion of its population live in appalling poverty while some live in enormous wealth. When one looks beyond that to Latin America, Africa and parts of south Asia, although great changes and improvements are undoubtedly going on, desperate poverty exists, and causes the insecurity of tomorrow and the misery that that brings.
	I had the good fortune to visit Angola a month ago as part of an Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation. I read all the statistics before I went. Indeed, I have read dozens of statistics on lots of things relating to Africa. The situation in Angola is appalling. One quarter of all children die before reaching their fifth birthday. Half the population have no access to clean water. More than half have no access to sewage and drainage facilities. Being paid a dollar a day would be a massive pay rise for many people. I understand all the problems that Angola has been through, including the 30 years of various wars, funded by oil, diamonds, South Africa and the United States, and all the horrors that went with that, but to go into towns where every building has either been destroyed or damaged by recent conflict makes one wonder what we are doing to allow that much poverty to exist between the north and the south.
	I hope that Angola has a donor conference in the near future. I hope that the small but effective British aid programme to Angola, administered through the Luanda urban poverty programme, not just continues but expands because it clearly has a good effect. Above all, however, I hope that we recognise that if we are to deal with malnutrition, infant mortality and premature deathlife expectancy in Angola is 41, so that counts out just about everyone in the Chamber with the exception of the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) and one or two of my hon. Friendswe must think about what we are doing in this world.
	Angola is not an isolated example of African poverty, but is the solution to demand that Africa follows an International Monetary Fund-imposed World Bank-led programme, which often involves cuts in public expenditure and draconian structural adjustment programmes, or is it to bring a sense of fairness and justice in trade, aid and environmental protection to the poorest people in the poorest parts of the world?
	The direction in which we are goingthe direction in which the United States is leading uswill not bring about a world of equality. Instead, we will spend more and more of our resources on more and more terrifying weaponry. There will be more and more wars. Afghanistan and Iraq have been mentioned, and plenty of others are on the agenda. Does that bring about peace, justice and a sense of equality? No. The Project for a New American Century and its selfish attention to American corporate commercial interests are very dangerous for the world as a whole. Instead of slavishly following what Bush and his cronies in the White House want us to do, it is time that we actively followed the path of the United Nations and international law and, above all, the path that brings about justice.
	We want a decent standard of living for ourselves and some security for our children. If we cannot help to bring that about in other parts of the world, their insecurity becomes our insecurity. If we want a peaceful world in the future we have to work hard for it. We cannot be complacent or myopic. We have to try to achieve that. Otherwise, what do we bequeath to our children except a world of conflict and endless wars, as predicted by great writers in the past? We have a chance to make a difference, but we are missing the opportunity.

Andrew Tyrie: To my surprise, I agree with the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) on a good number of things. Although we agree that the United States is mistaken, one of the basic differences between us is that he sees the need to construct justice as the essential building block for securing peace, whereas I see order as even more important than justice. Without order there can be no justice. It is what the United States is doing to make the world a more disorderly place that has led me to oppose American foreign policy so strongly. That is mainly what I want to talk about, but first I shall say a few words about Ukraine.
	My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) described as a great success the fact that Ukraine was at least looking towards the west, partly because of European Union enlargement, but it could equally well be described as an appalling failure that the EU dragged its feet for 15 years before getting around to enlargement. What would have been the effect on Ukraine if Poland had been a member 10 years ago? I think that Ukrainian policy and its history would have been fundamentally different had the neighbouring country watched Poland integrate with the EU. The foot-dragging on enlargement was one of the great scandals of our continent.
	My second point about Ukraine is to reinforce how what is going on there is part of a wider attempt to reverse aspects of the collapse of the Soviet Union. What we are seeing is not a reconstruction of Soviet totalitarianism, but it is still the creation of a pernicious soft dictatorship by a former KGB officer. In 1946, Churchill talked about an iron curtain falling from Stettin to Trieste. Perhaps it is not fanciful to suggest that a more modest form of curtain is falling from Murmansk to Odessa, at least if Ukrainian attempts at peaceful street revolution fail over the next few days.
	It is not just the rigged elections and the intimidation in Ukraine. Behind that is President Putin's active support for such tactics. Domestically, he is taking powers to control the judiciary. He is crushing democracy in the provinces by removing elections for provincial governors, confiscating assets and eroding property rights. Free speech is being suppressed in parts of Russia and, in the name of anti-terrorist measures, we now have a sanction for the widespread and systematic use of torture, particularly in Dagestan and Chechnya.
	When Churchill made his speech in 1946, he wanted to shake America away from drifting towards isolationism, but he was also attacking an equally dangerous utopian internationalism that was gripping parts of the United States. Isolationists in the United States were arguing that the US should use its nuclear monopoly to impose values on the rest of the world, while idealists and Wilsonians wanted to share nuclear weapons with Russia. They said openly that the Russians should be given this technology immediately because that would be the price for getting them into an active, working UN Security Council. Both of those extreme policies were, in a sense, mistaken. It was not until George Kennan mapped out what became the foreign policy that we had for the following 50 years, which we have only recently discarded, that American foreign policy stabilised.
	In a famous telegram that he sent from Moscow, George Kennan made three points, which I think are still pertinent, that had huge influence throughout the west, especially in Washington. First, he said that we must look dispassionately at both the nature of the Soviet threat and the limits to it, and that we must not get panicky about it. Secondly, he said that we must respond to that threat not by trying to take it head on, but by military containment. Thirdly, he said that even if the Soviet Union was trying to overthrow the whole of the state systemin that sense, a revolutionary powerwe must engage with it actively and try to get it to play a part in the international community.
	Today, United States foreign policy is again in flux. We desperately need common sense like that of George Kennan 50 years ago. With the end of the cold war, some in the US have argued that military preponderance can underpin a new form of muscular isolationism. The idealists have been hard at it too, arguing that forcemy right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe referred to thiscan be used to spread democracy and that a democratic world will necessarily be a peaceful one. They argue that the great enduring problems of international relations and conflict between states can somehow finally be solved by spreading democracy.
	Part of the great illusion that has always existed in American policy is that absolute security can be achieved. We live in an age of relative security and have done so since the invention of nuclear weapons. Nothing that America will do can change that.
	In the late 1940s, America listened to Kennan, Acheson, Churchill and others. It rejected the isolationists and the idealists. The great danger that I see is that America is now locked into a policy that will take us into extremely dangerous waters. It is looking for a permanent fix to the problems of international relations.
	The mainstream of foreign policy opinion in Washington has been set aside. It might be thought that what is happening in America is representative of opinion in Washington, but it is not. The overwhelming majority of Democrats oppose it, and a large chunk of the Republican party vigorously opposes George W. Bush's foreign policy. A small group has taken over. It has captured a president, and that president has captured our Prime Minister.
	Both the Prime Minister and the president seem to have convinced themselves that it is not only morally right to try to export democracy at the barrel of a gun, but that that will in itself necessarily make the world more peaceful. That is nothing more than a pernicious delusion. Of course we should do everything that we can to encourage democracy, but any political system, even democracy imposed by others, will often make our military action appear to be not liberation, but occupation.
	I regret to say that British policy seems to have surrendered to the simplicity of the idea that everything can be solved if only we can impose our own values on others. We are witnessing and actively participating in a mixture of the ruthless application of force, exemplified by Rumsfeld, and a misplaced messianic idealism that comes from Wolfowitz and others. That is what has taken us into Iraq, and it is what has led us to participate in the absurdity, as I mentioned a short while ago in an intervention, of flattening and depopulating a city in the name of democracy.

David Cairns: It is a genuine pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) and his thoughtful and eloquent exposition of the nature of American foreign policy and how that has affected UK foreign policy. I agree with him inasmuch as I, too, am a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Alliance and a strong Atlanticist. I agree with his critique of some of the first principles, and some of his critique of the neo-conservative world view, but I cannot go along with everything he said about American foreign policy. I do not agree with anything he said about British foreign policy.
	On American foreign policy, the hon. Gentleman spoke about the desire for absolute security. I have never detected any American who believes that absolute security is possible. They are in pursuit of relative security and of greater relative security. After the events of 9/11, who can blame them? With the threats regularly made against Americans around the world before 9/11 and afterwards, who can blame them if they wish to create a more secure world for themselves and their citizens around the world? One may criticise the way they are going about it, and one may argue that that is not making the world a safer place.
	If I have criticism of American foreign policy as it is currently conducted, it is that they have not grasped sufficiently the strength of America's soft power. I think it was Joseph Nye who coined that phrase, and it is an excellent one. It is bizarre that in any anti-American or anti-globalisation riots on the streets of almost any city in the world, no self-respecting rioter goes out without his Nikes and baseball cap. The strength of America's soft power and of its influence have made that country tremendously attractive. The values that have made America the strong and prosperous country that it is are enduring human values to which people aspire.
	I do not accept that we should impose democracy at the point of a gun, but nor do I accept that we should suppress democracy at the point of a gun. All too often around the world we have seen people's legitimate democratic aspirations repressed at the point of a gun. It is a relatively recent argument that we are enforcing democracy at the point of a gun. I prefer to see the threat being removed and democracy being allowed to flourish without the threat of military action against those whose vested interest is in preventing democracy.
	I want to use the occasion of responding to the Queen's Speech to focus on one aspect that was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence and from both Opposition Front Benches. I return to a subject that I have raised in the House on many occasions, and regretfully have to do so againthe ongoing scandal of the Afghanistan opium poppy trade and the devastating misery that the heroin it produces causes in the streets of my constituency and every other constituency represented in the House today. This trade is a chain of misery and degradation. It begins with the exploitation of desperately poor farmers in some of the most inhospitable corners of the globe, progresses via grotesque profiteering by international drug traffickers and their vile associates, and results in the abject misery and suffering of wretched addicts, blighting the quality of life of innocents who live beside the seedy reality of petty drug dealing in the streets of the United Kingdom. The evil business does not end there. The circle is complete. It returns whence it came in the form of narco-terrorist funding. No one who has been listening to President Karzai in the past 12 months can be in any doubt that international terrorists are directly and financially funding their murderous activity with drugs money. I cannot conceive of a more vicious, vicious circle.
	Before I address what must be done to tackle the trade at source, I should say that I am perfectly well aware of the basic laws of human commerce, and they apply here as they do elsewhere. Where there is a demand there will be a supply. Cutting off the flow of heroin that comes from Afghanistan will not end the problem of addiction, but I make no apologies today for focusing on the supply-side regime. Markets must operate within social, human and international legal boundaries. The trade in heroin is as immoral, corrupt, violent and destructive as it gets. Supply feeds demand. The more heroin there is, the cheaper it is; the cheaper it gets, the more people use; the more people use, the more addicts are created; and more addicts mean more crime, more sickness, more heartbreak for families and more tragic early deaths.
	We have heard quoted many times in the course of this afternoon's debate that 95 per cent. of the heroin on Britain's streets begins life as poppies in Afghanistan. My right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson) made a compelling case highlighting the connection between the foreign affairs and security aspects of the Queen's Speech and the domestic crime-related aspects. Many people say that that is all creating one huge climate of fear, but those two are intrinsically connected, and the Queen's speech recognises that.

David Cairns: Yes, I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. My constituency earned the sobriquet, entirely unmerited I may say, of being the heroin capital of Scotland. It was not true, but it is hard to shake off such labels, so I understand what it must be like for the people in Ballymena. I am talking today about the supply side, but the entire chain needs to be attacked. Some of the measures in the Queen's Speech, such as the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the establishment of cross-European co-operation, such as the common European arrest warrant, are central to tackling the trade throughout Europe, as is the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, confiscating the assets of convicted criminals, or making them prove that their assets did not come from illegal criminal activity. There is no one magic bullet, but all those measures help directly to address the point that the hon. Gentleman makes.
	This is a lucrative trade. In 2003, the combined income of Afghan opium farmers and traffickers was about $2.3 billion, roughly equivalent to half the legitimate gross domestic product of that country. We are entitled to ask how that came to pass. Was not one of the reasons for toppling the Taliban that it had, in part, been funded by the opium trade? That was certainly the view expressed by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in his statement of 7 October 2001. As the conflict in Afghanistan, precipitated by the attacks of the previous month in New York, began, he said:
	We act also because the Al-Qaeda network and the Taliban regime are funded in large part on the drugs trade . . . stopping that trade is, again, directly in our interests.
	The following day, speaking in the House, the Prime Minister said:
	We in Britain have the most direct interest in defeating such terror . . . We know that the Taliban regime is largely funded by the drugs trade and that 90 per cent. of the heroin on British streets originates in Afghanistan.[Official Report, 8 October 2001; Vol. 372, c. 814.]
	Again, that is closely equating terror with the drugs trade.
	After the conflict was over, the Prime Minister returned to the topic in an interview with the BBC World Service, in which he praised President Karzai's recent initiative
	to issue instructions to destroy the poppy crop in Afghanistan for this year
	that is, 2001.
	He continued:
	We are giving every support to this. This is very, very important indeed.
	I agree wholeheartedly with the Prime Minister. This was one of the reasons why I strongly supported the overthrow of the Taliban regime.
	The problem is that the situation is getting worse. In 2002, the year in which the Prime Minister was speaking, about 74,000 hectares were given over to poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. Last year, that had grown to 80,000 hectares, and this year the figure has risen to 131,000 hectaresa 64 per cent. increase year on year. I understand that unofficial figures from the United States State Department suggest that the figure is even higherperhaps even twice as high, at somewhere in the region of 250,000 hectares. If that turned out to be the case, it would be truly terrifying.
	The practice is therefore spreading. In 1999, 18 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces reported poppy cultivation. In 2000, it had spread to 23 provinces, and by 2002, it was happening in 24. By last year, 28 of the provinces were reporting poppy cultivation, and it will come as no surprise to anyone to discover that this year's United Nations survey reports that poppy cultivation has now spread to every province in the country. The number of people involved is staggering. Last year, some 264,000 families were engaged in opium growing, with roughly 1.7 million people's livelihoods depending on the crop. This year, the figure has risen to 356,000 families, involving 2.3 million people. That is 10 per cent. of the entire population of Afghanistan.
	How is it that, three years after military action was taken to end the trade, and more than two years after my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spoke of destroying the harvest, things are moving so rapidly in the wrong direction? I know that Ministers are working tirelessly on this issue, and none more so than the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell), who is absolutely dedicated to reversing this tide. I have had the good fortune to discuss the issue with him on many occasions, and he has been very open and honest with me about it. I particularly commend the Government's initiative to convene the first international counter-narcotics conference in Afghanistan, which was held in February this year.
	We have to begin from a point of honesty in this debate; we must not kid ourselves. The situation on the ground is deteriorating. President Karzai has warned of the risk that Afghanistan will
	again turn into a failed statethis time in the hands of the drugs cartels and the narco-terrorists.
	In February, he also warned that poppy cultivation
	not only affects the economy of Afghanistan, but the money which is earned from the trafficking, production and business of heroin fuels terrorism. Terrorism and narcotic drugs are involved and co-operate in the destruction of Afghanistan, the region and the world.
	That last claim might sound like hyperbole, but when President Karzai, a hugely respected figure, says that if these problems are left unchecked they will result in the destruction of Afghanistan, the region and the world, we have to take notice.
	What can be done? All too often, the debate polarises and falls into two camps: those who say that we should actively seek and destroy the poppies and deal with the consequences afterwards; and those who wish to persuade opium growers that they should develop an alternative crop, and provide them with the wherewithal to do so. The way forward must surely lie somewhere in between. Enforcement must be accompanied by assistancethe stick of the military and the carrot of greater resources.
	That is not what is happening at the moment, however. The risk to reward ratio in Afghanistan is completely unbalanced. The rewards for being involved in the opium poppy trade far outweigh the risk of being caught. That point has been made on many occasions by Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. It was in an attempt to strike a balance between those who favour a scorched-earth approach and those who favour gradualism that the United Kingdom convened the international conference that I mentioned earlier.
	The time for talking has surely passed. We need action on law enforcement, including against corrupt Government officials who are hampering the counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan in return for a lucrative share of the profits. We need action on alternative livelihoods. I welcome the appointment of a UK-funded alternative livelihoods consultant and the work that the Department for International Development is doing with its alternative livelihoods section. I applaud the initiative of Dr. Iain Wright from Aberdeen universitywho has gone out to Afghanistan today, funded by DFID's alternative livelihoods sectionto try to persuade farmers in Afghanistan to move away from the poppy crop towards raising Kashmir goats, which could provide an alternative livelihood.
	We have to be honest as well, however, and we have to be honest with the Afghan farmers: no crop that they can grow will produce the same income and any suggestion that we will discover a crop that provides them with an alternative livelihood as lucrative as that which they enjoy now is a chimera. We might wait to discover such a crop, but it does not exist. In Afghanistan, the climate will not lend itself, as it does in Thailand and Pakistan, to alternative crops that provide a high income for those people. We should not kid them.
	We need action, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones) said, on drug demand reduction to deal with the growing problem of domestic drug addiction. We need action in Afghanistanthe UK Government have been in the lead on this as wellon public education, with the acknowledgement that opium production has become the cultural norm in many parts of that country, despite the fact that that is clearly against the tenets of mainstream Islam. We must do more to reinforce that message.
	We also need action on eradication; we must not shy away from that. Now that the election is behind us and President Karzai has been returned with a strong mandate, we need far more steps to be taken on crop destruction. My view, which I have been advancing for the past two years, is that that eradication should be part of the core military objectives of NATO through the international security assistance force.
	I am aware that that is not everyone's view, but I was tremendously heartened when the Prime Minister, in reply to a question that I put to him in the summer, agreed with me, saying:
	It is fair to say that there have been some successes in eradication, but for a long time under the Taliban this trade provided a main source of income for them. It would certainly help if this became part of the NATO tasks, but we shall have to continue to have that debate.[Official Report, 30 June 2004; Vol. 423, c. 300.]
	I was encouraged to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence say that those discussions with our NATO allies are under way. They are vital.
	I close my remarks on Afghanistan by saying that we cannot afford to wait a generation to solve this problem. Antonio Maria Costa is predicting that it could take a generation, but we simply cannot afford to wait that long. I cannot tell the good people of Inverclyde that they may have to put up with the scumbag heroin dealers who blight our communities for another 30 years. I am not prepared to wait a generation for a significant decrease in the flow of cheap heroin on to our streets. I am not prepared to wag a finger at corrupt Afghan officials and to coax reluctant farmers into seeing the error of their ways without the threat of terrible reprisals if they do not. I am not prepared to return to this issue in another 12 months to report further setbacks. We need real progress.
	I come briefly to another subject that has caused a great deal of debate today. I was not going to go into it, but the way that the debate has progressed compels me to refer to the middle east peace process. I was in the region a couple of weeks ago, immediately before President Arafat's terminal illness. Having visited it on many occasions, I have never known a time of such absolute despair and despondency over whether any progress will be made. I have never known the two sides to be so far apart with absolutely no trust whatever between them.
	Distasteful though this may be, and tragic though it undoubtedly is for President Arafat and his family, his demise might provide an opportunity to break that logjam and move forward, although none of us would have wished that to happen in such a way. However, it has happened and the opportunity is here.
	I said that I would not make many comments on this subject, but the way that the debate has gone shows how such debates often go in the House: people pay lip service to acts of terrorism by the Palestinians and then devote the majority of their speech to attacking Israel and apportioning all the blame to it, with the honourable exception of the hon. Member for South Antrim (David Burnside), who put another point of view. I wish to join him in perhaps reflecting a more balanced view, which is, I think, that of the vast majority of Israeli citizens, who do not regard their Government as the source of all the problems and all the road blocks that are in the way of a move towards peace.
	Just to address some of the points that have been made, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick) said that whenever moderates on the Palestinian side attempt to crack down on terror, they are undermined by the Israeli Government. That is simply not the case. Whenever people such as Mohammad Dahlan and Jibril Rijoub attempted to crack down on terror in Gaza and the west bank, they were undermined by Yasser Arafat. That is why Mr.   Dahlan resigned when Abu Mazen lefthe was despairing that every time that he tried to crack down on terror, he was undermined by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority.
	We have heard a lot of talk again today about the wall. I expect that I will convince nobody that the security barrier, fence or wallcall it what one willis working to reduce terror and suicide attacks. People have long since made up their minds about that. However, let us be factual in our use of language. It is a wall in two places, Qalqilia and Abu Dis. I have been to both places, the wall there is a great, big, ugly thing, and I hope that it is torn down as soon as possible. But, in fact, 96 per cent. of the construction is a fence, which any of us could get through in about 10 minutes. It is designed for one function onlyto provide the Israeli defence forces, by delaying people getting through it, with about a 15-minute window of opportunity to apprehend or at least follow them.
	I do not agree with the routethe Israeli supreme court has ruled on that, and the Israeli Government are changing itbut continually referring to it as a wall, as if the entire length of it were a wall, on a par with the Berlin wall or perhaps some of the walls that the British government built in Belfast, is fundamentally misleading and deliberately conveys the impression that somehow the whole Palestinian Authority is being walled in by Israel. It is not. This barrier must be a temporary measure that can be pulled down as quickly as it has been put up, but it has had a dramatic impact on reducing the number of suicide bombings that have taken place inside Israel since it was erected.
	To finish on this point, the people to whom our delegation spoke, on the Israeli side, in Ramallah and in east Jerusalem, did not agree on anything except one matterthat the United Kingdom in general, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in particular, are perceived as being honest brokers. My right hon. Friend has the trust of both sides in the debate. The Palestinians genuinely see him as a moderating influence on the Americans. The Israelis genuinely see him as a strong and staunch supporter of Israel's right to exist. I sincerely hope that he makes good on his promises in this place and at the Labour party conference to use every sinew to drive forward the middle east peace process. It is excellent news that the Foreign Secretary is in the region today. This is an historic moment or a window of opportunitywhatever clich or soundbite one may like to employ, we now have an opportunity to move the peace process forward.
	Unlike in Northern Ireland, we know more or less what the end result will look likea two-state solution, with Jerusalem divided, a deal on the Palestinian right of return, some land in Israel proper provided to keep some of the settlements near the green line, but the vast majority of the other settlements withdrawn. Everybody knows thatwe have an outcome but no process, whereas in Northern Ireland we have a process but no outcome.
	Now is the chance to put the process back on track and to work towards the outcome outlined in the road map, the Wye river agreement and umpteen other agreements that have set out the way in which the process will inevitably end. The Prime Minister is uniquely placed to bring that about, and he has my every encouragement and good will as he goes about that task.

Martin Smyth: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's giving way so graciously. I am following his argument, which I share, very carefully. He pays tribute to the United States and has mentioned North Korea and Sudan, among other nations. Does he agree with me that the real tragedy is that other Security Council members have not exercised their responsibility to advance world peace and understanding, and that they have often covered up the problems in those countries and supported Governments who continue to oppress their own people?

John Bercow: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Of course, Burma is never a minuted item on the agenda of Security Council meetings, principally because of a suspicionno doubt well foundedthat China will get in the way. It will always be an obstacle and will invariably say no to any effective action against that regime. Notwithstanding China's calculated and wilful obstructionism, we in the international community should continue to raise the plight of the people of Burma, and it is right in itself to do so. The State Peace and Development Council fears international attention and exposure and to put it very politely, it has minimal skill in the field of international public relations.

John Bercow: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point and I am happy to acknowledge it. I want to make it clear that I do not regard this as a contest to see which country gets the lesser or greater attention. I shall say something in due course about our relations with other states and the great importance of operating on an ethical basis now, not only because to do so is right in itself, but for fear of what might otherwise subsequently transpire for the security of our country.
	The International Labour Organisation has highlighted the use of forced labour in Burma, and it has called for a review of the situation and for the identification of that activity as a crime against humanity that deserves the United Nations' attention and response. I am sorry to say that the Security Council has completely ignored that respected body's recommendation, so frankly, the UN is not being effective.
	What is the European Union doing? Well, there is a visa ban. It has to be said that it does not affect most members of the State Peace and Development Council, for the simple reason that most of the time, they are not greatly interested in travelling to EU countries. In the event that they have to do so for an international political gathering, the EU's pathetically limp-wristed response is to waive the ban in any case. So we can see that what is taking place is purely gesture politics.
	The EU has imposed an asset freeze, which has thus far frozen 4,000 across the whole of the European Union. In any case, that freeze applies only to individuals and has no impact whatever on business activities, including the enormous military and industrial conglomerates that are wreaking such havoc in the country. That is pretty unsatisfactory, too. It is true that there is an EU arms embargo, but Amnesty International is concerned that a German firm is effectively circumventing it by routing weapons to Burma through the Ukraine. Once again, that is a very real concern. No substantial sanctions are being adopted at all.
	Action has recently been taken against the pineapple juice sector, because there is a military-controlled pineapple juice operation in Burma. Forgive me, Mr.   Deputy Speaker, but I, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and the Burma Campaign have always been under the rather strong impression that it was not pineapple juice that was driving the militaristic, fascistic and sadistic behaviour of the regime. We thought, in fact, that it was the oil, gas, telecommunications, gems and timber sectors instead. It would be good to think that the international community would be prepared to adopt a robust programme of sanctions to do something about it.

John Bercow: I entirely agree with right hon. Gentleman. He may be awareif not, I shall tell him nowthat I have regularly called for a debate in Government time on the situation in Darfur. I have appealed to the Leader of the House to provide time for such a debate, which would be of great interest to Members across the Chamber as well as to many people in the country at large. We should never underestimate the humanitarian instinct of the mass of the British people, who do not like to see their fellow human beings being slaughtered as is happening in Darfur at present. Something like 200 people are dying there every day and there is an immense need for action.
	Frankly, the level of activity to date on the part of the international community has been feeble. Yes, there has been an asset freeze and a trade embargo applied by the US, but what has the UN said? Resolutions 1556 and 1564 were passed respectively in July and September this year, but what did they do and how did they make a difference? In what way did they save lives and how was the human condition made better in that part of the world? The answer is that precious little by way of hope was offered to the people of Darfur. What those resolutions suggested was that the international community was writing an essay in timidity. They gave time for the Government of Sudan to do better. The July resolution spoke about additional measures being taken if no improvements were made. The September resolution said that appropriate action would be taken, but the term was left gloriously unspecified.
	The Under-Secretary of State for Defence is present on the Government Front Bench, and he should be aware that the most recent resolution has caused Amnesty International and other organisations great concern. They say that it is a big step backwards because it focuses overwhelmingly on the north-south peace accord. That accord is important, but the focus on it is not merely to the detriment but nearly to the exclusion of the continuing abuses taking place in Darfur.
	A great deal more needs to be done. At the moment the EU has no robust policy on this matter. We need detailed, effective and perhaps even remorseless sanctions to try to bring about a change of behaviour. There is no sign at present of such sanctions being introduced.
	There are some similarities with the situation in North Korea. Just as there are human rights abuses and a big weapons spend in Burma, and just as some $665 million was spent in 2002 on the military in Sudan, so there are terrible human rights abuses in North Korea. Those abuses take the form of idolatry of the Government of the day and of the religious persecution that is also evident in Burma and in parts of Sudan. There is also famine, and the forcible repatriation of refugees.
	North Korea is one of the most closed states in the world, and one of the things that is most peculiarly sinister about it is that the Government divide the population into three categories when it comes to determining the distribution of basic services, including food. The three categories of people are core, wavering and hostile.
	People who are onside get what the Government think that they should have. People who are unsound or uncertain get a rather rawer deal. People considered to be foes of the regime get nothing by way of the bare essentials on which continued existence depends, and are also likely to find that the full scale of what are truly vicious and unspeakable human rights abuses is visited upon them.
	In all the countries to which I have referred, a cocktail of barbarity is evident that has genuinely shocked and disfigured the world. Of course, it is very difficult to engage with North Korea as an issue. For example, 23 per cent. of its budget is spent on defence. We know that the regime has nuclear and chemical weapons and that it is seeking to develop biological weapons as well. It is not easy to deal with what is going on there, but we need some answers because people are suffering grievously, as they have for a long time.
	That causes me to ask the important question: what should the international community do? The issues with which we are grappling do not get as much attention as other matters, but that does not mean that they do not require it.
	We certainly need action, because examples from the past show the danger of sitting on our hands. In that connection, we should remember what happened in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and Indonesia. It must be painfully apparent that cosying up to fundamentally unsavoury regimes in the hope of securing political co-operation or in the pursuit of filthy lucre ends up as a grave disservice to ourselves. We feed the monster and then the monster threatens to devour us.
	I am not making any sort of party-political point. We all know that successive Administrations have made significant errors as well as scored foreign policy points successes. If we look back to the experience of dealing with these countries, we should realise that we need changes in policy. First, we need a broader definition of what constitutes national interest. Historically, my party has rightly regarded national interest as the first criterion for the conduct of foreign policy. I do not object to that, but it is time that we broadened the definition of national interest. As Chris Pattensoon to be Lord Pattenobserved as long ago as May 2001, it is bilge to regard expedience and morality as being in different corners for the purposes of the long-term conduct of foreign policy. It must surely make sense to realise that those countries that will ultimately prove to be good neighbours, with which it is best to do business and in which it is easiest to invest, are also those countries that treat their citizens most decently. In developing a philosophical framework for the conduct of foreign policy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) did in his own way, let us recognise not the error of the definition, but the need for its updating and adaptation to the circumstances of the modern world.
	Secondly, we need United Nations reform. I greatly respected what the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) said on that subject earlier. On 10 December 1948, when the United Nations universal declaration of human rights was issued, reference was made to the pursuit of a common standard of achievement for all peoples in terms of respect for and observance of human rights. I endorse that, but we all know that too often the UN has failed to live up to the standard that it set itself. Article 4 of the UN charter describes the proper behaviour to be expected of peace-loving peoples. Article 6 says that if a state persistently violates the terms of the charter it can, in certain circumstances, be expelled. That has happened far too rarely. It has happened, most notably in the case of South Africa, but it has not happened to Burma, Sudan or North Korea. Far too little attention is paid to the truly grotesque behaviour of many regimes that puff themselves up and take their seats at the table of that reputable body which fails to observe the principles that it set out so rightly and eloquently more than half a century ago.
	Thirdly, the same goes for the UN Commission on Human Rights. I hope that I enjoy the support of the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde for the observation that it is absurd that in 2001 the United States, whichfor all its faultsis a beacon of freedom, justice and commitment to the rule of law, was effectively kicked out of the commission, coming back only in 2003, while Libya, which is not a noted historical champion of the principles of political pluralism or respect for human rights, became chairman of the commission. I suggest to the Government, for their remaining months in office, to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) and to my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Oppositionwho I hope will shortly be the Conservative Prime Ministerthat membership of the UNCHR should be determined on the basis of behaviour, not of geography. It is not acceptable to take a geographical approach or adopt the principle of Buggins' turn, which gives the reins to countries irrespective of whether they have shown contempt for the very principles that their membership of the organisation requires them to uphold. Is it any wonder that the counsels of the international community are not held in high esteem if that is how we behave? That is the third point and it is an important one.
	There is also an important point to make about diplomacy. My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition, in an important speech last week, highlighted, as other hon. Members today have done, the immense opportunity that Britain has to exert influence through our strong economy, the fact that ours is the fourth largest economy in the world, and in particular, the fact that we are members of the United Nations, the European Union, NATO, the Security Council, the Commonwealth and the G8. Indeed, in 2005 we shall have the presidency of both the European Union and the G8, and that will be a real opportunity to exert diplomatic influence and to seek to persuade other people to behave in an acceptable way. Diplomacy is important.
	The use of sanctions could be important, too. They might be targeted against particular sectors in given regimes for the achievement of human rights improvement and political benefit. In some cases, we might adopt a more subtle approach; we could have terms of business agreements with individual countriesa more carrot-and-stick approachwhereby we did business with a nation whose record was historically dodgy, or worse, if it was prepared to commit to, and abide by, strict and proper ethical rules of business engagementthe employment of citizens and so on.
	In certain circumstances, the remaining alternative in the field of sanctions is simply to say, Disinvest. I do not always go along with what The Independent says, but Johann Hari wrote an exceptionally interesting and thought-provoking article in that newspaper last Friday, in which, recalling how apartheid in South Africa was brought down, he asked why there should not be a campaign of disinvestment in relation to Sudan. Just as China behaves appallingly in relation to Burma, so the behaviour of the French Government in relation to policy towards Sudan is nothing to write home about either. Perhaps a disinvestment campaign would be a good thing.
	The promotion of democracy is important, certainly through what Chris Patten, I think, described as an insanely undervalued institution, the British Council, but also through extending the good work of the BBC World Service. I should like radio services to go into North Korea. If my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) thinksalthough I hope that he does notthat that is an attempt to export our cultural values, the answer is that, yes it is. It is an unashamed belief that there is something rather noble about those values, which at least in some formalthough not in absolutely replicated formwe should seek to engender in parts of the world where they would be greatly appreciated and have been too long denied.
	An attack on the whole small weapons industry is critical. About 300,000 people a year are killed through small weapons. The Department for International Development supported international small weapons destruction day and I pay tribute to the Secretary of State for International Development for doing so, but much needs to be done. There is an EU code of conduct on small weapons, but it is rather weak and most observers think it needs to be strengthened. Trade in small weapons, and their trafficking and brokering, is taking place and if we are to confront and defeat that phenomenon, in the interests of the greater security of the developing world and beyond, multilateral activity, through the councils of the international community, and with a sense of urgency, is certainly needed.
	Finally, let us briefly address the issue of humanitarian intervention. My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester said that he favoured humanitarian intervention in certain circumstances, but that they would need to be clearly spelled out. I agree with quite a lot, although not all, that he said. There aregood arguments for making humanitarian commitments, but we need the forces to make them credible so we should not rule out the dispatch of a substantial peacekeeping, as opposed to merely monitoring, force to Darfur, to try to bring to an end, as quickly as possible, the appalling suffering that is taking place there.
	A wider argument can be made. If there is a vacuum, ultimately it is filled. Unless the United Nations accepts its responsibility to uphold human rights, to promote democracy and to ensure that national sovereignty cannot be used by totalitarian regimes as a cloak behind which to continue appalling abuse of human rights, someone else will occupy the field. So action must be taken by a reformed and responsible United Nations or, alternatively, a new community of democracies will have to sit down together, determine the criteria and thrash out whether humanitarian intervention is justified. There is a great deal to be said for that, and despite all the mistakes that have been made since, I still support the decision to fight the war in Iraq. We should not neglect other parts of the world. What is happening in Darfur, what is taking place in Burma and what is being done in North Korea should concern every hon. Member.
	Of course, we cannot deal with everything militarily. We should use diplomacy; we should apply trade pressure; we should be prepared to impose sanctions; and in certain circumstances, yes, we are justified in intervening. The reality is that too many people around the world have suffered too much for too long with too little done about it. The challenge to political parties and the international community is to ensure that the defenceless, the discriminated against, the weak, the suffering and the voiceless do not continue to experience their present plight. We need a better policy to help them, to advance their cause and to give them a chance, and we need that policy sooner, rather than later.

Peter Kilfoyle: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). Although we differ on how to define national interest in the context in which he implied it, he certainly struck me as a convert to the cause advocated by the former Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook): the ethical foreign policy, which came to such an unhappy end during the first Labour Government after 1997. However, I want to speak about something rather different.
	Commentators have characterised the Queen's Speech as being set in a context of fear and insecurity and I agree with those on both sides of that argument, believe it or not. Certainly in respect of domestic policy, many of those fears and insecurities are alive and well, particularly in the poorer parts of the country where crime is a very real pandemic, but it is not necessarily the case that we can extrapolate from those specific areas to other parts of the country and make the same case. We must distinguish between the legitimate fears of crime and antisocial behaviour in many forms and the fact that the fear of crime often overtakes the reality. I would argue that the converse is true in respect of foreign and defence policies. We are working in a climate of fear and much of it is misplaced. That is not to deny that there are real dangers and challenges, but to deny the all-pervading sense that, down the road, some cataclysm will be foisted on the people of the United Kingdom. That is just not the case, and I see no objective evidence to suggest that it is; neither do I see the merit in stoking up people's fears in the way in which they often are.
	Where the effect of crime on domestic issues and foreign and defence policy most recently came to a conjunction was in Afghanistan. The Secretary of State for Defence referred to the drug trade in Afghanistan. Many figures about that have been bandied about in the House this afternoon, but they do not illuminate much. I hope that what would illuminate is a simple figure that we tend to forget: the year before the overthrow of the Taliban, for all their many and manifest failings as some kind of administration in Afghanistan, they reduced the export of heroin to 80 tonnes a year. They waged a war on heroin, so the price went up in western European cities, because Afghanistan is the main source for our drugs. I may have the figures slightly awry, but I understand that 3,600 tonnes were produced in Afghanistan last year, and one of the principal operators in the trade is Dostum, one of the chiefs of the Northern Alliance.
	I happen to know that Dostum met one of the big heroin importers into this country, who told me from prisonwhere, happily, he is locked up for many yearsthat his contact in importing heroin into this country was, through his Turkish intermediaries, Dostum. It was a great success to put such a man in a position of responsibility in post-war Afghanistan. No one takes issue with the need to get at the viper's nest of al-Qaeda operations in Afghanistan, but the failure to operate effectively afterwards meant that that man was able to ply his pernicious trade once more. Under the Taliban, he could not do so to the same extent.

Peter Kilfoyle: I defer to my hon. Friend's detailed knowledge of the figures. However, as he said, that does not take away from the argument that the people now in power can ply a pernicious trade that thoroughly infects the west.
	I also want to refer to the so-called special relationship. Everything that has been said in the debate so far is, in one way or another, predicated on the special relationship. I have heard speaker after speaker say how important the transatlantic alliance is to them personally and, by that, they mean the special relationship. The transatlantic alliance is important to me, and it has been important to us for generations and will be for generations to come. It is not without end, but we should try to define what it means and how, to return to a point made by the hon. Member for Buckingham, it affects our national interests.
	The issue is how we interpret our national interest and whether it is often subordinated to that of the United States. I take no issue with the United States for pursuing its national interest. When our national interest is not at one with theirs, it is up to us to decide whether we go with their interest or our own. To do that, we have to take a wee historical look at what the special relationship means and, as I said, we must define it.
	Whenever I have mentioned the special relationshipfrom the Back Benches or from the Front Bench, in private or in publicI have asked what the quid pro quo is from the British perspective. I was told that it was intelligence, and I will come to that subject in a moment. I could no see no other overriding factor that suggested that we should have a special relationship ad aeternam because all sorts of goodies accrued to the British people as a result. As I see it, as part of the special relationship, we hand over the use of places such as Diego Garcia, Fylingdales and Menwith Hill and, in return, we receive intelligence.
	Most of the time, we unquestioningly acquiesce in a whole variety of policies that emanate from within the beltway in Washington. They are not necessarily well thought out or in our national interest, but the acquiescence is there. In return, we have the British Prime Minister's totemic right to a hearing in Washington. What do we actually get out of that?
	To understand the answer, we must look at what we have achieved over the past 50 years as a result of the special relationship. Let us dispose of some of myths while not, in any way, decrying the enormous efforts made for five or six decades by the United States under various Governments. They have determined western progress and western advancement. Let us consider the situation immediately after world war two. I know that it rankles with many old soldiers to talk about the wartime and who won the warwe have this in every Remembrance servicebut the truth is that it was won due to a combination of factors. Within that crucible, however, our special relationship with the United States was forged. Historically, that was mostly due to family contacts, and especially Churchill and Roosevelt, the then leaders of the two great western democracies standing against fascism.
	The relationship has moved on since that time, but that has not happened without a price. I remember going with my ration book to the shops when I was a young ladI was a young lad once. One reason why rationing continued in this country for so long was because of the enormous cost of repaying the United States for the fantastic help and support that it lent us during and after the war. However, such help and support came at a tremendous cost to this country.
	It has been said that the special relationship was not brought to bear at Suez because that did not suit the national interests of the United States. However, we must also consider smaller matters on the global scale, such as the invasion of Grenada, when we were not even informed that a Commonwealth country was to be invaded. I thought that the notion that the United Kingdom was always the prime base in Europe for American interests was laid to rest during the latter stages of the cold war, when Germany was far more important to the United States than the United Kingdom was. That does not diminish our relationship with the United States, but shows that it is in a state of flux. The United States will do whatever is in its interestslong may that be, if one is an American. I   happen to be a citizen of the United Kingdom, so I sometimes take issue with that.
	The situation has never been more obvious than during the illegal and immoral war against IraqI and many outside the Chamber maintain that that remains the case. We must consider the cost of the war to us. We have been associated with not only the prosecution of such a war, but with attempts at making peace that have included such phenomena as Abu Ghraib and the levelling of Falluja. I want no association with such peace making; it is not peace making at all because, as many hon. Members have eloquently said, it adds to the fires of extremism and terrorism not only in Iraq, but throughout the world.
	We have become politically estranged from many of our older reliable allies throughout the world. Emerging countries in which we invested much political capital say that we are perhaps nothing more than a satrapy of the United States and, as such, should not be trusted. Our forces have been overstretched and put into such a situation that ex-Chiefs of the Defence Staff repeatedly advised the Government, as did the then Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Michael Boyce, that we should have had an acceptable exit strategy, although we still do not have one. The country will pay an economic cost not only now, but down the years, although we all know that America is advancing its economic interests in Iraq. The huge investment by the Foreign Office in good will throughout the whole of the middle east and the Arab world has been damaged considerably. We have paid those costs for our part in the special relationship, because no reason can explain why we joined the illegal and immoral war in Iraq, except advocating the special relationship.
	I, like the Prime Minister and any sensible person, recognise that we must move onthe whole world wants to move on. However, what will we move on to? We must remember that we are moving towards a world in which there will not be only one superpower, because the emerging superpowers of China and India are making rapid strides. We do not know how the European Union will evolve and what that will mean for the United Kingdom's foreign and defence policy.
	I know that the overwhelming opinion of the Government and, I assume, the House, is that we will continue to cherish the special relationship for many more years, even if people such as me think that it is something of a myth. We must accept that that is the majority view, but what sort of world will it lead us to? Let us consider what the present American Administration advocate. They are an Administration who instinctively reject diplomacy, multilateralism, collectivism and want to go it alone. They have kyboshed international treaties, not least the anti-ballistic missile treaty, which allows them to begin the first steps towards national missile defence. That approach extends into other areas, Kyoto being the obvious example. They are an Administration who are anti-United Nations. No matter what those with a different view might say, all the evidence has stacked up to suggest that there is a visceral antagonism towards the United Nations on the part of the Administration and their intellectual supporters among the neo-conservatives.

John Bercow: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with interest and respect. Surely the problem is that the United Nations needs to become an instrument of necessary change rather than merely a symbol of passive acceptance of the status quo. Does he accept that the reason why the United States has often felt inclined to go it alone is not because it wants to be in splendid isolation, but because the United Nations continues to abdicate its responsibility to stand up for what is right? Will he at least acknowledge that it needs to do that?

David Burnside: I shall be in Washington before Christmas meeting many of my neo-con friends. I shall pass on to them the views of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle).
	Before the war, in conversation with some neo-cons in the United States, I expressed concern that I think reflected general feeling on both sides of the Chamber. I am concerned about the United States, with the United Kingdom, trying to roll out by force democracy throughout the world. Although all of us in this place believe in democracy, would defend democracy and would vote in the House to fight for democracy throughout the world, it is a dangerously na-ve and unsophisticated policy to pursue. To roll it out as part of foreign policy, which is the essence of much of neo-con thinking in Washington, is superficially na-ve and dangerous.

David Burnside: I will come later in my remarks to the past, present and future contributions of the United States Administration to the peace process to which the hon. Gentleman refers.
	Iraq and the management of the war is now the Government's major foreign policy objective. We are where we are. The House voted, we went to war, we are in Iraq and we must manage it efficiently and effectively with as much all-party support in the House and as much co-operation with the traditional Atlantic alliance as possible.
	I shall concentrate my remarks on two peace processes that are sometimes complementary. Although I am not in the conflict-resolution sector of politics, as many of my fellow countrymen are in Northern Ireland, there are some lessons to be learned. The Government have an opportunity coming up to make a major contribution to a long-term, stable solution for peace in the middle east. There are a number of circumstances moving in the right direction.
	The re-election of President Bush is good for the peace process in the middle east. A second-term president is always good for the management of international affairs. I believe that the instinctive concerns that some have about Bush and his priorities in the middle east will be allayed. He will deal with the middle east conflict, the problem of Palestine and relations with Israel. A strong American President in his second term is a great advantage.
	The demise of Yasser Arafat is good for the future of the Palestinian people and will contribute to a more united, stable leadership that does not have the long-term legacy of terrorism or the freedom fighter imagewhatever one's position and whatever one thinksof Yasser Arafat. We all have our interpretations of the international links with Arafat in the early days of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and we all have our past. Arafat did not manage the Palestinian people firmly, fairly and in an honest and open way. His financial management of the state or statelet or yet-to-be state should be open to a great deal of scrutiny, and the international community must see that his type of management is not allowed in the future. The demise of Arafat is another circumstance that is good for a middle east solution.
	The third circumstance is that Prime Minister Sharon is showing considerably more flexibility than many had expectedflexibility on Gaza, the settlements and, hopefully, the Golan heights. He is a strong leader who will show flexibility at the right time.
	The fourth circumstance that will help a solution in the middle east and be necessary in our allied relationship with the United States is the position of our own Prime Minister. He is a P45 Prime Minister: he has announced that he will stand for election and go some time after the next election. He is coming to the end. The Labour party is conspiring and working out who should be its next leaderand, it hopes, the next Prime Minister. Because Prime Minister Blair wants to have the hand of history on his shoulder in respect not only of Ireland but of the middle east, he will make a major contribution, and his special relationship with President Bush is to the advantage of a solution in the middle east.
	Those circumstancesPresident Bush, Arafat's demise, Sharon's flexibility, and our P45 Prime Minister going through for another one or two years until he is replacedcombine with other developments in the region. Syria has a new regime and there is reasonable peace in Lebanon, especially southern Lebanon. It is a stable country that has recovered from the worst times of the war. A new king in Jordan, King Abdullah, wants to play a major role in the middle east. In the long tradition of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, I believe that Jordan will play a crucial role in working towards a peace settlement based on the two states in the middle east.
	We are passed the stage in foreign affairs where people even question the continuation of the independent sovereign state of Israel. That will continue. It will be supported, and the international community will respect it. We are passed the stage where people question whether there should be a two-state solution. The international community accepts that. We have the basis, with the world leadership, the presidents, the prime ministers and the support of the European Union, to establish a sound and stable peace solution through politics in the middle east. I am optimistic that the British Government and the Prime Minister will play a considerable role in achieving that objective.
	I sometimes wonder whether British-Irish relations come within foreign policy or some other strange relationship that has developed from the 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement or the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday agreement, but the management of the peace process in Ireland, which again is a political process, is very much the joint management of Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the Irish Republic. The British and Irish Governments have continually and abjectly failed to manage that process in a way that ends for ever the threat and continuation of terrorist organisations within Ireland, linked to the Irish republican movement and so-called loyalist paramilitaries.
	The British and Irish Governments have played footsie with the republican Sinn Fein-IRA movement. They have compromised time and again. They have made it difficult for the democratic political parties within Northern IrelandI include in that the Ulster Unionist party, the Democratic Unionist party and the SDLP, and one or two other small parties such as the Allianceto play an active and continuing role in the political peace process because time and again they have appeased those who hold on to terrorist organisations and a vast criminal empire. That includes Sinn Fein-IRA led by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, who are in and out of No. 10 Downing street with Jonathon Powell and other officials day in and day out, and never out of the Northern Ireland Office. They are still playing the double game of maintaining the terrorist threat without going the full route to becoming democrats and taking their place in a normal democratic society.
	I read a statement earlier this week from the IRA president and Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adamsthat is what he issaying that if we do not get the process moving ahead in the right direction, we should move to joint authority between the United Kingdom and the Irish Government. I fear such statements because they are deliberately provocative to those of us who are trying to stabilise and democratise politics in Northern Ireland for the long term and for ever. They are provoking Unionist people who feel that some form of British and Irish joint authority will be introduced over our heads, which would be against the so-called principle of consent that was meant to be in the Anglo-Irish agreement, and the so-called principle of consent that was meant to be in the Belfast agreement. We cannot have the principle of consent when some involved in the process are threatening a form of joint authority over us.

Martin Smyth: My hon. Friend was asked earlier about the role of President Clinton. Does he see an analogy between the recent acceptance of a promise from Iran not to proceed with a nuclear warhead and the Clinton era when there was peace, yet the bomb that blew up Canary Wharf was being planned?

David Burnside: There should be no appeasement, domestically or internationally, in the fight against terrorism. The double standards that are sometimes expressed in the House, especially from the Government Front Bench, must end. If we are to win the fight against domestic and international terrorism, there is only one standard, one criteria, one end objective, and that is the defeat of terrorism, so I accept the hypocritical nature of that stand.
	In moving on to the problem of concluding and finalising the peace and political process within Ireland, it is time that on foreign policy Her Majesty's Government started to re-establish who are the sovereign Government and Parliament of the United Kingdom. We continue to govern Northern Ireland in a consultative manner with the Government of the Irish Republic, as though there were some form of joint authority. The internal affairs of the United Kingdom are the internal affairs of the United Kingdom, and the institutions of government that may or may not be established at Stormont should be the institutions that are agreed by this Government and this Parliament. There should not be a form of joint authority. I worry about my own party in this regard, but I also worry about my friends and colleagues in the Democratic Unionist party, who appear to have been sucked into a negotiating positionwhether at Leeds castle or at Weston Parkthat has given the impression that the future of Northern Ireland is to be determined by a form of joint authority between the United Kingdom and the Irish Government.

Peter Kilfoyle: I am still not clear about this. I understand the geography and the route involvedindeed, the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) and I were down in Colombia last year and we dealt with this subject in some detailbut is the hon. Gentleman implying that the Cuban Government were involved in this in some way?

David Burnside: I am not, but there is a long historical link between Governments such as the Government of Cuba and the international network of left-wing terrorist organisations, which all arose in their own countries because of different historical backgrounds but are tied into an international network. The connection that I made was between the Provisional IRA, its representative in Havana, the home he was given there and the help that he was given in Cuba in its relationship with FARC, the anti-American, drug-financed terrorist organisation in Colombia. I think I have made the connection very clearly.
	The domestic and the international fight against terrorism can be achieved only if we have a stronger, better, more efficient and, in my opinion, bigger Regular Army, Navy and Air Force, so some planned projections from Her Majesty's Government on the size of the infantry and of the Army cause me major concern. I have one point to make, and I do so with respect to a soldier for whom I have the highest personal regardGeneral Sir Michael Jackson, who is a paratrooper: great history, great regiment, great honour. I hope that the House will decide on the future of the British Army and the importance of its regimental system.
	Even if General Sir Michael Jackson recommends that we have management within the Army and within companies, mergers and forming super-regiments will be so fundamentally harmful to the future of the British Armythis will end the British regimental system, which every other army in the world would give its eye-teeth forthat we must debate that in the House and fight it. If that reverses some of General Sir Michael Jackson's management decisions, so be it. I believe that we can gain cross-party support in the House and that the regimental systemwith its strength, its honour, its past and its futureis something that we cannot give up. I hope that Labour Members, Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party will come together to save the British regimental system.

David Burnside: I agree with my hon. Friend.
	My concluding subject is normalisation in Ulster. In a recent exchange, the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, asked me whether I believe in normalisation. There is nothing that I and the vast majority of people want in Northern Ireland more than normalisation. We want our garrison strength, police on the streets, and the total and absolute end of terrorism. We want our Territorial Army regiments travelling throughout Ulster to train for the future role of the TA.
	We do not want Regular Army back-up for our police service or the civil power for any longer than is necessary, but does anyone think that we can say that there is normalisation when the terrorist organisations continue to exist and do not disarm? The Provisional IRA has gone four yearsalmost fivebeyond the Belfast agreement date for completing disarmament, but it still holds on to its arms, explosives and criminal empire.
	On the so-called loyalist paramilitary side, again there are illegal weapons and much criminality, which should not live in a normal society. Therefore, I look forward to the peace dividend coming out of Northern Ireland. I believe it will help the deployment of our armed forces to meet national and international needs, but we are not there yet.
	I want to make yet another appeal to the Secretary of State for Defence. We in Northern Ireland have always had an armed back-up to the civil power, which presently exists in the three home battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment. One battalion is in Aldergrove in my constituency, one is in Omagh and one is in Armagh, comprising 3,300 men and women. One does not do away with the tradition of the Royal Irish and the Ulster Defence Regimentthe defence against future terrorism and future threatsgive that up, and say that another few battalions have gone, we do not need them, and it looks reasonably peaceful at the moment. We must maintain those three home battalions within the Northern Ireland garrisonI believe that the Government are considering numbers of 5,000, although we are not at that stage yet. Will the Secretary of State therefore give us a commitment that even in a more peaceful society, we will maintain the three home battalions?
	I am extremely optimistic on peace settlements around the world. We have the opportunity to establish a foundation for peace in the middle east, and we can make progress on the peace process in Northern Ireland, but we must not go too far, too fast. We must always make every judgment, every decision and every executive decision relating to our armed forces, police and home defences based on reality and not hope for peace. If we do that, we will have a more peaceful domestic and international society.

Martin Linton: Indeed.
	I believe that we must use all the resources available to us in the fight against international terrorism. One proposal in the Queen's Speech will play an important role in that fight. I would never suggest that identity cards are a panacea that would stop international terrorism in its tracks. Indeed, it has been shown that they would have made no difference in the attack on the World Trade Centre, but the lack of identity cards in this country has created many problems, such as ID fraud and multiple applications for benefits. Those problems are very difficult to stamp out without absolute tests of a person's identity.
	To a large extent, the lack of identity cards has exacerbated the illegal immigration problem. When I was a member of the Home Affairs Committee, we found that people from the Sangatte centre cited the lack of any internal checks here as one of their main reasons for coming to this country. Once they were in this country, the prospect was that they would have no problem in staying here.
	The lack of identity cards has never been portrayed as a crucial factor in illegal immigration, but it certainly is a contributory factor. Most asylum seekers in my constituency tell me that identity cards would be of enormous benefit to them. People who try to apply for a driving licence and renew their passports at the same time have found that impossible because they have to send their passports to the Home Office, where it stays for six months. It is much simpler for people to have an application and registration card that proves their identity electronically, and which does not have to be sent all over the place.
	Equally, many families of Indian or African descent have problems with entry visas for this country. The entry clearance officers in our embassies and high commissions abroad will not give entry visas to many categories of people, including young people with no jobs, people who do not own a house and people who are not married, because there is no way to check whether they return to their country of origin once they have spent their six months in this country. We have no way to check whether or not someone has returned to their country.
	ID cards could thus be of enormous benefit not only to people who have lived here for a long time, but to those who have recently arrived. That was why I suggested to the Home Affairs Committee the idea of entitlement cards. That suggestion was taken up by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and has now found its way into the identity card Bill. It is a good proposal, although it emphasises too much the conveniences of ID cards to the Government and not enough the value of an ID card to the individual[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) may laugh, but once the cards are in circulation he will see that they are immensely popular. People claim that the cards will be foisted on them, but the cards will be very useful.
	For example, let us consider the complications involved in renewing a road tax disc. One has to produce four or five documents from different Departments all at the same time and take them to the post office or post them off and wait for them to come back. Identity cards, combined with website technology, will make it possible to have certificated copies of one's private documents sent to a Department without needing to move from one's house. That is an example of the benefits that ID cards will bring.
	I understand people's anxiety and trepidation about ID cards, but 79 per cent. of the populationaccording to Home Office figuresare in favour of them. All ethnic minorities show a majority in favour of the cards. If they are not concerned about them, there is no point in people being concerned on their behalf. They are perfectly capable of making a judgment about whether the cards will be in their interest.
	The Government are right to say that safety and security must be pursued. Those issues rightly take up a large part of the Queen's Speech. On the issue of foreign affairs, we must recognise that while security is very important, a safe world is a just world. We cannot have complete safety in international affairs unless people feel that they live in a just world or one that is at least striving to achieve justice. In the end, stopping terrorism can be achieved only by stopping the causes of terrorism.

Sarah Teather: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton). Although I did not agree with everything that he said, I strongly endorse the comments he made about the situation in Israel-Palestine. The situation is intolerable for many Palestinians, especially those families that have been cut off by the building of the wall, perhaps from other members of their families or community. We have to recognise that free movement across the wall is not possible. While we call for democratic elections following the death of Yasser Arafat, we should remember than many people are unable to move across the wall and may be unable to vote. That is a very worrying situation and we must call for the strongest possible action against Israel. I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Sir   Menzies Campbell) has called elsewhere for the special EU trading agreements to be withdrawn, as a possible sanction, but we must look at all options to ensure that Israel withdraws from the occupied territories.
	Today I wish to speak about two issues that were raised in the Gracious Speech. First, I shall speak briefly about several issues in Iraq, including security and stability in that country and progress towards elections in January. Secondly, I shall talk about international co-operation on terrorism, with specific regard to two constituents of mine who are in Guantanamo bay.
	I begin with Iraq. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) said earlier today, Liberal Democrats were bitterly opposed to the war. We believe that military action should not have been taken because it violated international law and was based on a false prospectus. No weapons of mass destruction have been found and the serious and present danger that we were warned about has been shown not to exist. My right hon. and learned Friend spoke of the long shadow of Iraq and of the violence and instability that is still cast over Iraq, but it has also been cast over the UK and UK politics. I fear that irreparable damage has been done to trust in politics in this country as a result of that military action.
	Although we would not have started from this point, all parties are entirely in agreement that it is vital that the elections in January take place, to begin the process of rebuilding the country. However, there are serious practical concerns about whether the elections will be possible and they need to be addressed; for example, the UN estimates that Iraq will need about 30,000 polling stations nation wide and an electoral staff of about 120,000, but those arrangements have yet to be put in place.
	The UN presence in Iraq is currently very limited for security reasons. The Iraqi Foreign Minister criticised the UN for its reluctance to send large numbers of staff to Iraq, but who can blame it when the situation is so dangerous? Those matters need to be addressed urgently if the elections are to take place in January.
	The election date30 Januaryis in the middle of Hajj, when millions of Muslims are likely to be crossing overland from Iraq through Afghanistan and Iran. How will the coalition forces ensure that insurgents are not present? Will that affect the security arrangements?
	I asked the Secretary of State what would be done to ensure that those refugees from Falluja, who had fled before the coalition action there, were registered to vote and able to vote. He said that they are able return to their homes, but that answer was woefully inadequate. Many cannot return to their homes because they have no homes to go to and we do not know where they are. The Secretary of State said that many were staying with family and friends. However, even in this country where movements of people are entirely predictablefor example, students departing from a cityit is difficult to ensure that everyone takes up their democratic right to vote. How on earth can we believe that people in Falluja will have that opportunity? As the coalition action was taken to ensure that those people would have the democratic right to vote, it would be terrible if they, of all people, found themselves unable to exercise that right.
	I want to touch on the situation of failed asylum seekers in this country. In February, the Government announced that, from April 2004, they would deport failed asylum seekers back to Iraq. Last week, a constituent visited me. He is a dentist who has been in the UK since 1999 and has qualified with the General Dental Council. We all know that there is a terrible lack of dentists in this country, so his skills would be a welcome addition to our public service. However, he lost several appeals and has had his right to benefits withdrawn, which is the normal occurrence. He has also had the right to work withdrawn, so he has no means of support, yet he cannot be deported to Iraq because the security situation is such that it would be unsafe to send him there. That seems complete nonsense. The Home Office must sort things out to ensure that people who remain in the UK because they are unable to return to their country can at least support themselves if they are willing to do so.
	I turn to the situation in Guanatamo Bay, where two of my constituents are detained: Martin Mubanga, who has dual Zambian-British nationality and Jamil el-Banna, who holds a Jordanian passport but was granted political refugee status by the Government and has lived in this country for many years. His wife and their five children are also my constituents. Neither of those two of my constituents, contrary to popular belief, was picked up in Afghanistan. Martin Mubanga was arrested in Zambia and Jamil el-Banna was arrested in Gambia.
	The Foreign Secretary very kindly agreed to meet me, with Martin Mubanga's sister, earlier this year. Martin's family still have no information about why he was arrested in Zambia or about the circumstances in which he was handed over to the Americans. As far as they are concerned, he was visiting his aunt in Zambia, and a matter of weeks later, they were told that he had been picked up and incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay. When I met the Foreign Secretary, I asked him on behalf of the family to investigate the circumstances of Martin's arrest in Zambia and the process that was followed when he was handed over by Zambian officials to American officials.
	The Foreign Secretary explained that, as Martin was travelling on a Zambian passport at the time, his officials were unable to make that kind of diplomatic inquiry, but he assured me that he would use what influence he has to find out what happened. I have had no information since and neither have the family. They are very anxious to find out about the circumstances surrounding Martin's arrest, simply to put the pieces together. Imagine the crisis that the family feel. I cannot imagine what it must feel like not to know what happened to their brother or why he is in Guantanamo Bay.
	The six-monthly visits by Foreign Office officials to Martin have been almost the only contact that the family have had with him. He has made various allegations of mistreatmentin particular, that he has been the subject of hot and cold treatment, and I am sure that hon. Members will be aware that similar allegations have been made by other people. He also explained that, when he was interrogated, he was shackled to the floor and told that he was not allowed to go to the toilet. He consequently wet himself and was forced to clean up after himself. That kind of degrading, humiliating treatment is completely unacceptable; if it were to take place in any jail in this country, I am sure that there would be hell to pay.
	Foreign Office officials said that they raised those matters with the US authorities, which claimed that they were unfounded, but we have no independent means to check what happened and the family are not reassured by what has been said. Martin has faced consistent problems in gaining access to dental treatment. He has had various problems while he has been at Guantanamo Bay, and he claims that he has lost a considerable amount of weight. For a period, no mail at all got through to his family. Even when mail did get through, when Foreign Office officials were visiting, he was allowed to read the mail from his family with the officials there, but the mail was then supposed to be checked by security and passed to him for him to keep. However, as the Foreign Office reports show, that was often not the case and his mail was never passed on to him.
	In all of that, Martin has not lost that element of who he is, which has reassured his family. When one official asked him last year whether he would like to pass any message back to his family, Martin asked for the following to be passed on:
	To All,
	Not seen any of your mail. Wonder why. Must be the postman.
	To Kay,
	Sorry to have missed your birthday. Things on my mind. Happy belated birthday.
	That is filled with bitter pathos, but we can see that he has not lost his sense of humour. Whatever that man has or has not donewe do not knowhe is entitled to a fair trial and his family are entitled to know what has happened to him.
	Martin's family are extremely frustrated that no progress appears to have been made with his case. As I said earlier, they still have no information about why he was arrested. Although intelligence information about other detainees has been leaked to the British press, no information about what Martin is supposed to have done has got out, and his family do not know why he has been detained. They are perhaps most worried about the comments made by the Prime Minister on his recent visit to Washington, when he suggested that there had been security breaches by those who had been released into this country. The family are justifiably concerned that any action by those who may have been released could jeopardise Martin's case for release. That would be a complete contravention of basic standards of justice, whereby each person should be considered on their own merit.
	If the family of Martin Mubanga have had very little information about him, the family of Jamil el-Banna have had even less. He is a Jordanian, albeit one who has lived in this country for many years, and the Foreign Office says that it has no influence over his case. He is in diplomatic no-man's land. He has now been out of the country for more than two years, putting him in breach of the normal rules on his indefinite leave to remain. His family would like to know what will happen to that leave. Will the normal rules be applied and will he lose his right to stay, or will they be waived, given that he has been away from the country through no desire of his own?
	The position gets worse. In answer to questions in the House of Lords about Jamil el-Banna and Bisher al-Rawi and the US's stated intention that, if they were ever to be released, they would be deported to their own countries, the UK said that this was merely a matter for the US. That is obviously nonsense. Jamil el-Banna was given refugee status because there was a very real threat of torture that was recognised by the British Government. For him to be deported to Jordan would be complete nonsense and absolutely appalling. I hope that the British Government will make the strongest possible call to make sure that that does not happen.
	The continued incarceration of British citizens and others in an American jailwithout charge, without trial, without proper access to lawyers and without access to, or contact with, their familiesis a complete affront to justice. The fact that the country that is violating the most basic standards of justice loves to evangelise about the rule of law and human rights to the rest of the world is perhaps the most galling of hypocrisies. Irrespective of what these prisoners have been accused oflet us remember that they have only been accused and not in publicthey are entirely entitled to a fair trial, to put their case and to have it heard. The continued failure of our Government to secure that for their citizens leads us to question whether there is anything very special about our relationship with the United States.

Crispin Blunt: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), She said important things about the loss of trust in politics and about the way that we went into war in Iraq, and I shall return to those issues. She gave the House a graphic account of the consequences of American policy at Guantanamo Bay for constituents and for the families of those constituents. I share her concern that Guantanamo Bay, with its complete absence of discernible legal process and the legal limbo in which it places people, is a dreadful advertisement for western values.
	I shall come later in my remarks to the middle east peace process and Palestine. That has been the focus of the speeches of several hon. Members, and I shall pick up some of their points.
	I welcome the Minister for Trade and Investment back to his place. I realise that he is not nearly as young as he looks, but I regret that he has not been in the Chamber for much of the debate. It has been a particularly good debate, and there have been some fine speeches. I want to follow two that happen to have been made by a couple of my hon. Friends, but they could have come from either side of the House. I refer to those made by my hon. Friends the Members for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) and for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), and I shall also try to examine the merits of armed intervention.
	I was the special adviser in the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office from 1993 to 1997 when the Bosnia crisis was at its peak. I remember listening in the House to urgent cries for us to ramp up the level of intervention in Bosnia, notably from the hon. Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick). He has taken part in this debate and was a constant advocate of our taking a more robust role.
	I believe that our intervention in Bosnia achieved its objectives, which were clear and limited. They were to contain the conflict, deliver humanitarian aid and provide a platform for a settlement. We limited ourselves to those objectives under the United Nations mandate, and with United Nations forces largely provided by western European powers, we were able to achieve the objectives. As a resultmessy and horrible though the course of that conflict waswe now have a settlement in Bosnia between three parties who were at each other's throats in the most appalling manner during parts of the crisis that is starting to be sustained for the long term. The prospects for Bosnia are much better than those for any other part of the world in which we have chosen to intervene since.
	I was against the intervention in Kosovo for primarily military reasons because I did not believe that an air campaign alone could achieve the military objectives that had been set. We had 78 days of bombing, after which the United States and United Kingdom faced up to the extremely uncomfortable prospect of having to invade Kosovo with land forces to achieve the military objectives. If that had happened, NATO would have split down the middle because there was enormous resistance in the rest of NATO to committing ground forces to Kosovo. Ironically, NATO was rescued by the Russians' actions in persuading President Milosevic to withdraw his forces from Kosovo.
	If we look back at the circumstances surrounding the occupation of Kosovo, even five years after the intervention, it is difficult to claim that it was a success. Some 200,000 Serbs have been in effect ethnically cleansed from Kosovo. I fully understand that we went in there because even more ethnic Albanians were leaving Kosovo at the time, but the fact is that our policy was largely manipulated by the Kosovo Liberation Army. The KLA deliberately started a campaign of terror inside Kosovo to provoke the Serbian security forces into overreacting, which they duly did with enormous stupidity, and thus bring about western intervention. Five years later, the state of Kosovo is administered by the United Nations and its future remains completely uncertain. Whether or not we find a settlement regarding partition, the activities in Kosovo of the KLA and Kosovo civil societyif that is what it ought to be calledare a cause for reproach. We in the United Kingdom are on the receiving end of a great deal of criminal behaviour and organised crime that flows through Kosovo, as are other European countries.
	I can barely remember hearing a dissenting voice in the House when the decision was made to intervene in Afghanistan to take out the Taliban Government who were providing sanctuary to the forces of al-Qaeda. The case for intervention was clear, but three years later, we can hardly say that all the results of it sit in the benefit column rather than the cost column. We know of an interesting account of the relationship between General Dostum, a warlord whose support we needed to evict the Taliban Government, and an English drug dealer who now happily rests at Her Majesty's pleasure in the prison in the constituency of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle). The figures on poppy production cited by the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (David Cairns) are an appalling reproach to the British Government because they have made it the United Kingdom's specific responsibility to try to bear down on poppy production, and consequent opium production, in Afghanistan.
	We then come to the whole issue of Iraq. Having been in the House for six years before March 2003, I thought that I could tell when the Prime Minister was genuine. In that debate and in the one in September 2002, I believed him absolutely and voted for intervention in Iraq. If I knew then what I know now, I would not have done so, partly because the case for intervention was oversold, but mainly because of the way in which the occupation in Iraq has been conducted. The fact that Abu Ghraib is to be the image of the west that is engraved on much of the middle east is a symptom of how intervention has gone terribly wrong.
	We have made a number of mistakes, which my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition recounted in an important foreign policy speech last week. It is important that we look back at the interventions that have taken place, either with or without United Nations authority, since the end of the cold war and learn the lessons of the difficulties of armed interventions. Even if the situation is crying out for armed intervention to achieve a legitimate objective, as it was in Afghanistan when we needed to address the problem of the Afghan Government giving sanctuary to al-Qaeda, it will be difficult to come out with a wholly positive result in the aftermath.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham eloquently made the case for an activist foreign policy to address the appalling situations in Burma, Sudan and North Korea. He was careful to make it clear that he did not want armed intervention, except, I think, in Sudan under the aegis of clear United Nations authority. I hope that we learn the lesson that armed force should be the last resort.
	Hon. Members mentioned Israel and Palestine. The hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde said that we know the nature of the settlement and all we need is a process. I hope that someone tells the Israeli Government what the settlement is because there is a myth that the Palestinians have been offered an acceptable settlement not once but twicefirst at Camp David and then at Tabaand for some quixotic reasons decided to turn it down. It is important that exactly what happened at Camp David goes on the record because it would give some understanding of what is required to find a solution.
	The hon. Gentleman is, however, right that a solution was negotiated through the Geneva accord by Israeli and Palestinian politicians of good will, but that was not the case at Camp David. The outcome of Camp David was the most impressive piece of United States and Israeli spin, implying that Yasser Arafat turned down a brilliant deal for bizarre reasons of his own. For a true and lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, two viable and independent states must live together as equal neighbours. That should be anyone's starting point, but the Camp David proposal denied the Palestinian state viability and independence by dividing Palestinian territory into four separate cantons, entirely surrounded and therefore controlled by Israel. The proposal also denied Palestinians control over their borders, air space and water resources while legitimising the expanding illegal Israeli colonies in Palestinian territory.

Crispin Blunt: The idea that Yasser Arafat refused to negotiate is, with great respect to my hon. Friend, a little wide of the mark and unfair. It was the culminating point of a significant lengthy period of negotiations. One of the problems about the way in which Prime Minister Barak approached the negotiations is that they were not negotiations at all. Palestinian support for the peace process was undermined by the way in which Israel presented its proposal. Prime Minister Barak, before entering the first negotiations on the permanent status issues, repeatedly threatened the Palestinians that his offer would be Israel's best and final offer, and if not accepted Israel would seriously consider unilateral separation, a euphemism for imposing a settlement rather than negotiating one.
	The Palestinians felt that they had been betrayed by Israel, which had committed itself at the beginning of the Oslo process to ending its occupation of Palestinian land in accordance with UN resolutions 242 and 338. It is against that background of growing Palestinian disenchantment and economic collapse that the Camp David talks took place.
	There is no doubt that Yasser Arafat was comprehensively out-manoeuvred and out-spun at Camp David. It suited Israel and the United States to turn him into the bogeyman who was responsible for the collapse of the negotiations. So he remained until his death, being presented as the obstacle to peace. The myth of Camp David has not been debunked. Thus Arafat's passing presents an opportunity simply because that apparent obstacle in the eyes of Israeli and American public opinion, and as put forward by their policy makers, has seen a change. There is now an opportunity although we should appreciate that the fundamentals will not change for the next Palestinian leader who, it is hoped, will be the negotiating partner of Israel.
	The need now is to convince Israeli public opinion that their neighbours are not a bunch of psychotic killers who are incapable of compromise, but a people who have themselves been the victims of appalling injustice arising directly out of the even greater injustice visited upon the Jews by Europeans in the first half of the 20th century.
	I challenge the view that this is somehow a matter for the United States to put pressure on Israel about and that therefore our role is to put pressure on the United States to put pressure on the Israelis in order to compromise. If there is to be a deal, it will have to be supported by public opinion in Israel, as it will have to be supported by the majority of public opinion of the Palestinians. That will require enormous leadership skills from both sets of leaders. I do not believe that in the end outside leaders can impose a settlement. The need is to bring the majority of Israeli people to the understanding that the Palestinians are reacting in the way that any people without hope who have suffered similarly would.
	Asking Israelis to understand the rage that produces suicide bombers does not ask them to excuse the criminality or stupidity of such actions as a tool of policy. It asks them to consider the merits of treating their neighbours with respect and the potential benefits of restoring hope. The end of the Arafat era is another chance for hope to return.
	I welcome the Prime Minister's priority on the middle east peace process. He must properly engage not only with the Americans but with the Israelis and the Palestinians. I note that the Israelis have rather unhelpfully said, as far as No. 10 is concerned, I understand, that the Prime Minister will visit the region in December.
	The bogeyman of Arafat was a myth but he was, by the end, an old, tired and disenchanted leader who would not delegate control. That was a reality. In death, he becomes what he should have concentrated on being while confined in his compound in Ramallah: the symbol of the Palestinian people. Whether Arafat becomes a symbol of hope or a symbol of despair and continuing resistance will be down to the Israeli people and their leaders, as well as Arafat's successors.

Michael Connarty: The hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) hit a number of important targets. I was in Belfast last Friday. As the hon. Gentleman knows, when he was in another party I was with the British armed forces in South Armagh, and I talked to many of the people who are now suffering the problems to which he referred. I hope that the Government will show some sensitivity to the plight of people leaving the serviceservice that they have given to this country.
	I commend the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr.   Soames) on what I thought was an excellent analysis and a sympathetic view of the situation among the Arab nations. I hope that behind the scenes, away from the political theatre of which this is very much a part, there will be an opportunity for joint work to establish what our ParliamentGovernment and Oppositionshould do to help the people of the middle east to find a real solution to their problems.
	That was illustrated very well by the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) in his perceptive analysis of the Arab-Israeli position. I have been going to the area since 1988. Many errors have been made on both sides, which has led to the present tragic impasse. As for Kosovo, there is no need to apologise for our intervention. I was calling for intervention some two months before we did intervene, when a massacre was going on and there was good evidence for it.
	Abu Ghraib is not the benchmark to determine whether our invasion of Iraq was a success or a failure, although the hon. Gentleman used it as such. There are no excuses for anyone who voted for that invasion. I voted against it because, regardless of what was put to the House from the Dispatch Box, everyone who read the evidence in the public prints and presented by many learned peopleincluding all the weapons inspectorsargued against it. The Tories voted for it. I know that Members of Parliament are never hypocritical, but I think it appalling that those who voted for it should now try to shift their ground. The thing to do is to see this through with some honour and to the advantage of the Iraqi people, and perhaps learn the lesson that we should not have voted for invasion in the first place.
	The contribution of the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex on defence was pretty weak. He did not answer the question from the Secretary of State for Defence about the number of troops when the Conservatives left office; nor did he allow the Secretary of State to tell him in an intervention. He simply funked it. I remember the tragic loss of good will and motivation among our armed forces when the Tories introduced Options for Change and people in my constituency, serving loyally, were scrappedthrown on the scrapheap by the Government when they wanted to continue to serve. That caused much of the malaise and the recruitment problem that continue in my area to this day.
	I had an opportunity to go to Afghanistan and join our troops on the ground before the election, in both Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul. Everything that has been said about their work there is true and commendable. The problem in Afghanistan is caused by what is virtually a narco-economy. I am worried about what may happen if we take the view that the Americans have taken in Colombia. If we eradicate the crop by spraying, it may move elsewhere. We need to tackle that problem in a more fundamental and economic way.
	Iraq is a different matter. I was there in the Kurdish area, before the invasion. I recently chaired a meeting with Iraq's Vice-President, who at that time was the Kurdish Speaker of the House. He argued that many of those who lead the insurgency are not Iraqi nationals. It would be useful if those who are described as insurgents could be named, and in particular if their country of origin could be identified. If that information were provided, much of the existing sympathy for the idea that Iraqis are resisting an invasion by foreign troops would disappear.
	There are many things to learn, and I hope that the point that I made in an intervention about thinking smarter and adopting evidence-based policies in the middle east will be picked up in the winding-up speech. I look forward to the Minister's reply.

Andrew Rosindell: I rise to present a petition of no less than 665 of my constituents who are deeply concerned by the proposal to close a GP surgery in the town centre. The South Street surgery serves the community between Rush Green to the south, Gidea Park to the north and the roads that lead off between Victoria road and Brentwood road. Earlier this year, the local doctor, Dr. Roy, who has served our community so well for more than 30 years, decided that he would retire. That has led the local PCT to decide that the surgery would close, which has prompted a campaign by local residents, led by Jan McGinley, and the signatures have been collected in the last few months. We believe that there has not been adequate consultation and that the PCT should consider local residents' views before closing the surgery.
	The petition reads:
	To the House of Commons
	The Petition of the residents of the central Romford
	Declares that their local GP surgery is under threat of closure which would leave local residents with no surgery within a reasonable distance, which would leave many people, especially the elderly, struggling to access local health care.
	The Petitioners therefore request that House do urge the Government to ensure that an adequate consultation should take place to examine options which would keep the surgery open.
	And the Petitioners remain etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Teddy Taylor: I am particularly grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the chance to raise on the Adjournment the issue of relations with Iran the day before an important meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency that relates to an initiative in which Iran has taken a very positive part. At a time when events in the middle east are not going very wellin particular, the activities in Iraqit is a pleasure to have the opportunity to raise the issue of relations with Iran.
	I feel that Iran is a country with a great tradition that could assist western powers immensely in seeking to solve the many issues that exist in the middle east, and I should like in particular to congratulate the Foreign Office on the positive role that it has taken on relations with Iran. However, there are a few issues on which it is important that the Government should make positive and clear statements, and I will look forward to the Minister's comments.
	The first issue that is obviously urgent and important is that of Iran's activities in the field of nuclear energy. I understand that, at the meeting of the IAEA tomorrow, there will be discussions of the initiative taken by Britain and other countries on the co-operation of Iran, and it would be beneficial if a clear statement could be made. A clear statement is all the more important because of the wild and irresponsible statements made by the National Council of Resistance of Iranthe political wing of the People's Mujaheddin, otherwise known as the MKO, which is a terrorist organisation banned both in Europe and in the United States. Its activities are regularly publicised in The Daily Telegraph newspaper, and on the 20 November, a summary of briefing was given in the United States about Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions.
	Although the advice that I have had from Iran is that it does not intend to produce nuclear weapons, there is no doubt that the information provided by the so-called NCRI has placed a great deal of attention on the alleged production of enriched uranium at two sitesone in Natanz, which is 150 miles south of Tehran, and the other in the Lavizan district of north-east Tehran. My understanding is that, to avoid any apparent problems, the Government of Iran have made it abundantly clear that any such production of enriched uranium will cease immediately and, of course, will be the subject of inspection and control by the IAEA.
	I would like the Government to make it abundantly clear that they are satisfied with the latest assurances from the Iranian Government and that they will confirm that, following the worthwhile discussions between Britain, other European countries and Iran, that any problem of alleged nuclear proliferation has been dealt with in a satisfactory manner. I have a feeling that, because of the astonishing and substantial propaganda being put out, there will clearly be a continuing problem. To that extent, it would be immensely helpful if the Government made it clear that the Iranians have co-operated in the discussions designed to remove fears of nuclear weapon production and that the allegations made about the two sites in Iran have been resolved. It would also be helpful if the Government could make it clear that there is every indication that the Iranians are co-operating fully with the IAEA.
	My feeling is that the best way of resolving the problem would be a conference of all countries in the middle east that could prepare for the establishment of a non-nuclear area. We certainly know that one country in the middle east has nuclear weapons and it would help to restore confidence and co-operation if the general issue could be overcome. However, in the meantime, it would be particularly helpful if, in advance of the conference, the Government made it clear that real progress has been made in the discussions with Iran and that the fears advanced have been resolved.
	It would also be helpful if the Government could make it abundantly clear that the so-called NCRI, which is very active outside Iran and particularly in public relationsit had a meeting in the House of Commons todaydoes not have any realistic support in Iran itself. Certainly the organisation appeared to have some backing, but during the Iran-Iraq war when the Iraqis invaded Iran, it appeared to give its full support to the Iraqis. The impression that I gained from a recent visit was that it has no real support among the people of Iran. However, it would be helpful if the Government could clarify that.
	The final point on this issue that I would like to make is to ask whether the Minister could make it clear that, when promoting better relations with Iran and the co-operation that has now been secured, he has the support of all Ministers in the Government. There were some unfortunate press cuttings on MondayI am sure that the Minister has seen onein which the Secretary of State for Defence was quoted rightly or wrongly as saying rather nasty and aggressive things. However, he today spoke in a much more helpful way and a statement was made to say that he was dealing with the issue hypothetically. I hope, however, that the Government will make it clear that all Ministers support their policy and that Ministers should speak only if they are in the Foreign Office and not in any other Department.
	The second issue that I wish to raise is important. I hope that the Government will also say something about a subject that is causing huge concern in Iran itself. I refer to the protection that is being given to the MKO's terrorist training camps in Iraq. I understand that, following strong representations, tanks and other large weapons were removed from the site, but the fact is that there are a substantial number of people in the camp in Iraqat one time, there were no fewer than 3,800 terrorists whose basic task was to train for terrorism. I have spoken to persons who were formally involved in appalling terrorist activities and who now regret all that they have done, and it seems that it was a highly organised and effective terrorist operation.
	The camp is called Camp Ashraf and I have seen many details of the quite appalling events that the MKO has been involved in Iran itself. Irresponsibility is typical of terrorist organisations throughout the world, and it is abundantly clear that the MKO has no aim whatsoever apart from that of creating chaos and horror within Iran.
	The basic problem is what on earth we can do with the trainees in Camp Ashraf. I would have thought that the most obvious and clear answer would be to arrange for people from independent organisations, such as the United Nations, to interview every one of the activists on their own and to ask them if they wished to carry on with their activities or to return to Iran on the basis of a clear policy of forgiveness that the Iranian Government have announced. Once this has been completed, I think the most obvious step for the western powers to take is to remove all weaponry from the terrorists concerned. Of course, I appreciate that terrorists can always obtain more weapons, but we must do something if we have regard for those who have lost relatives, and particularly children, as a result of the MKO's terrorist activities and who hear that the terrorists still have weapons under the United States' supervision.
	At one time, the organisation had camps that were equipped with tanks, guns and helicopter gunships. Although some of the weapons have been removed, it is important for us to face up to the basic issue of interviewing each terrorist or trainee and at least removing their weaponry. It would make a difference to the relationships of Britain and the US with Iran if we could make it abundantly clear that we are facing up to the matter and taking it as seriously as we should.
	Thirdly, I hope that the Government will make a clear statement on their assessment of the situation in Iran itself. Owing to misleading propaganda, people have gained the wrong impression about the country, so some things should be said clearly and unambiguously. I got the impression that education was of a high standard and that a remarkable number of youngsters went to university. Many of the university institutions are free and I am immensely impressed that more than half the students are young women. I gained the clear impression that many other countries in the middle east could learn a great deal about education from Iran, so I wonder whether the Government share my assessment.
	I also want to mention religious freedom. I was surprised and, obviously, encouraged to see a substantial number of Christian churches in Iran in addition to several Jewish synagogues. I certainly gained the clear impression that Jews and Christians were entitled to freedom of worship. When I asked officials about that and expressed my surprise, they indicated that it was their general position to allow freedoms for religions established before Mohammed, although there was some doubt about those established thereafter. That creates huge problems for people of more modern religions, such as the Baha'is, and I hope that more understanding will be given to all free, sound and sensible religions in time.

Peter Luff: rose

Peter Luff: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way because my intervention is directly relevant to the last point. Was he aware that the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly only a week today passed a resolution on the human rights situation in Iran that cited:
	the increased discrimination against the Baha'is, including cases of arbitrary arrest and detention, the denial of free worship or of publicly carrying out of communal affairs, the disregard of property rights, the destruction of sites of religious importance, the suspension of social, educational and community-related activities and the denial of access to higher education, employment, pensions and other benefits?
	Does he agree that international recognition of the serious problems facing the Baha'is in Iran is most welcome?

Teddy Taylor: I certainly understand that the Baha'is have a problem and that we must do everything possible to help them. However, bearing in mind the public's view of Iran, it is important for us to make it clear that there is freedom of religious expression for Jews and Christians. While we appreciate that, we should do everything in our power to persuade the Iranian authorities that all things should be done to secure freedom of religious expression for all religions and, certainly, that the Baha'is are not trouble makers in any sense, because the religion is responsible and respectable. I hope that progress will be made.
	I hope that the Government will say something about law and order, crime and the prison population in Iran. I visited a prison in Tehran in which people were detained for lengthy periods. In fact, a few had been involved in terrorist attacks. I was rather surprised to find out that there was a policy of letting prisoners out for one day a week on the basis that lengthy sentences could create problems for people who had no hope or expectation of seeing the outside world. Such a policy might create nightmares in the United Kingdom if we tried it, but it was certainly most interesting.
	As I thought that there was a possibility that I was being misled, I asked if I could take a prisoner who had been sentenced to 31 years imprisonment for a meal. I was told that there was no problem with that, and we had a most interesting discussion about terrorism in Iran. It was also interesting for me to have a meal with the prisoner in a restaurant in which most of the tables were taken up by families. I gained the impression, on the basis of that limited experience, that family commitments in Iran were an important part of life. The children appeared to be relaxed and well behaved with a positive attitude.
	Of course there is always a danger of being misled when visiting controversial foreign countries. I can only say that I spent my time wandering around freely and talking to as many people as I could with the help of amateur interpreters who were not part of the Government machine. I gained the impression that Iran had many positive aspects that were not internationally recognised or accepted.
	In so far as the prisoner was concerned, he told me that every prisoner had a room of his own and each one received a newspaper each morning. I wish I could say the same about Britain. In fairness, the general impression I got, apart from the prison, which may have been unusual, was that crime and disorder was very limited and that, by and large, criminal behaviour was very limited indeed. I may be wrong, and I would greatly appreciate the Government's general assessment of the situation.
	My fourth point is that perhaps the Government will think it justified to suggest to our American allies that they should take a more positive attitude to Iran. I am well aware of the points that I made when I said that Iran suffered hugely when it was invaded by Saddam Hussein some years ago during the appalling eight years' war. As I mentioned in the debate on our intervention in Iraq, it is abundantly clear from the Reagle report published by the American Senate that the Americans gave full support to Saddam Hussein at that time and provided him with a vast quantity of weapons of mass destruction, which were used against the Iranians.
	America has now changed its attitude to Saddam Hussein, but I think there could be merit in the Americans simply saying sorry for the most appalling and mass killings which were inflicted on the Iranian people by Saddam Hussein, who was then America's particular friend in the middle east. I also know that a plane from Iran with many women and children on board was shot down and blown to pieces by an American plane during the Gulf war. I feel that on the basis of America's commitment to the Christian faith that such events should cause us to express regret and understanding, and I am in no doubt that such a commitment would make a major difference in America's relations with countries like Iran in the middle east. So I would be most grateful if the Government could persuade America to say sorry.
	The final point is on trade with Iran. As more than half the population is under 30, the Iranians have major problems with unemployment, and to that extent the growth of industry and commerce and of trade is desperately important. I wonder whether the Government have encountered any problems in encouraging economic development in Iran. I had the pleasure last week of attending a dinner with the Iranian Industry Minister and the British ambassador to Iran. There is clearly a major problem in trying to promote economic development in Iran, and I wonder whether the Government foresee the possibility of making more progress on that.
	In conclusion, although in my 40 years here I have been critical of Departments and of some of the policies pursued by Governments of both parties, I feel that it is desperately important that I express my appreciation to the Foreign Office for its genuine endeavours to improve relations with Iran. Our Foreign Secretary has visited the country on five occasions and has endeavoured to deal with some of the obvious differences between our two communities on the basis of history and the management of our affairs.Of course it would be easier for him and the Government to take a negative and unconstructive view as it might make relations with some of our friends easier. However, the Government have gone out of their way to solve the problems, and if that policy was followed by our friends in the western world we would not have the nightmares in the middle east that we have now.
	The best way of solving the problems in the middle east is to encourage the nations there to take a positive and constructive attitude. To achieve this we need to treat them with dignity and respect. The Foreign Office has done that and I should like to give the simple assessment of their policy as well done.

Douglas Alexander: I thank the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir Teddy Taylor) for his favourable assessment of the Government's policy towards Iran. His warm and generous words are greatly appreciated.
	The hon. Gentleman is right about Iran's importance and its potential. Iran is both one of the world's oldest civilisations and, today, a country of young and well-educated people. Its economy is starting to open and diversify. It has a vital role to play in tackling some of the most important issues that we face: the fight against terrorism; the challenge of building strong, stable democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan; the effort to combat trafficking in drugs and other international crime; and, of course, how to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We want genuinely to work with an Iran that is addressing these challenges. That is why, along with our EU partners, we have pursued a policy of engagement. However, I emphasise that this engagement is conditional. Further development of relations with Iran depends on its progress in the areas of concern to us: notably, efforts to protect the rights and freedoms of its citizens, to support the emergence of a democratic Iraq, to work with us to reduce illegal immigration andat the forefront of our minds at the momentto address international concerns over its nuclear programme.
	I turn to the last area of concern, which is Iran's nuclear programme. We do not question Iran's, or any other country's, right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. However, under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, it is unacceptable for non-nuclear weapons states to seek to acquire nuclear weapons. Over the past two years, the International Atomic Energy Agency has consistently reported shortcomings by Iran in its duty to abide by its safeguards obligations and to be fully transparent with the agency. This has led to widespread international concern about whether Iran's nuclear ambitions are indeed solely peaceful.
	Although there is much further to go, the dialogue which we, together with France and Germanythe E3 partnershave pursued with Iran has had significant results. It has encouraged Iran both to co-operate with the IAEA and to agree steps which will, when implemented, help build international confidence that its nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes. So I welcome Iran's decision on 15 November to support the agreement with the UK, France and Germany and to put in place a full, sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. It is important that this agreement be fully implemented, and I look forward to hearing that that has happened. For now, I hope that the IAEA inspectors will be able to confirm at the IAEA board of governors' meeting starting tomorrow that the full suspension is in place. I hope also that the board will achieve consensus on a sensible way forward.
	As the agreement makes clear, we are at the beginning rather than the end of a process. If Iran's suspension is sustained and verified, we can look forward to discussions with Iran that are aimed at agreeing long-term arrangements. These will provide objective guarantees that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes. The issues are complex and challenging, and will not be resolved overnight. We will do out utmost to make rapid progress. At the same time, and to support the work being done on the nuclear side, we intend to take forward discussions with Iran on political and security issues, and on co-operation in other areas. On these issues, too, I hope that we will see early progress.
	In the same context, I welcome the November European Council's decision that, once suspension is verified, negotiations should resume on a trade and co-operation agreement between Iran and the EU. Iran wants to develop a stronger and more diverse economy with more opportunities for its millions of highly qualified graduates. We want to help it to do so, including by supporting economic reform and agreeing measures to protect foreign investment. I stress again that progress in our relations with Iran needs to be accompanied by efforts to address our areas of concern.
	One of those concerns is human rights. Like so many other Members, I was very disappointed at the mass disqualification of candidates for the parliamentary elections this February. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman enjoyed his visit to Iran and glad that he came away with such a favourable impression, but it would be wrong to ignore the significant human rights problems that continue to exist there. Iran remains a country where freedom of expression is under threat, where barbarous forms of execution still take place and where non-Muslim communities face widespread violations of their rights.
	It is true that Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism are recognised under Iran's constitution, but we continue to hear reports detailing the surveillance and persecution of these minorities. We have additional concerns about the situation of the Baha'i, a religious community not recognised under Iran's constitution. We have received reports that they face increased discrimination, including arbitrary arrest and detention, denial of free worship and disregard of their property rights.
	I assure the House that we regularly discuss these issues with the Iranian authorities, including through the EU-Iran human rights dialogue, and have urged them to respect and protect the rights of all Iranian citizens. Last week, we and other EU countries co-sponsored a resolution on human rights in Iran at the UN General Assembly, which was tabled by Canada. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall remain vigilant and active over this issue of our relations.
	The hon. Gentleman referred to the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq. I welcome his strong condemnation of it. As he said, the MeK has little support in Iran and deservedly so, given its history of involvement in brutal terrorist violence. The Government have proscribed the MeK under the Terrorism Act 2000 and I assure him that we continue to regard it as a matter of high concern.
	We also recognise the feeling in Iran about Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Responsibility for the camp has passed from the Americans to the Iraqi Interim Government, although at the request of the Iraqi authorities, the United States continues to provide security. We will continue to support the efforts of the Iraqi Interim Government, the US authorities and others with an interest to find an effective and durable solution for the future of the camp and its residents.
	We expect and encourage Iran to play a full role in the wider fight against terrorism. We have urged it to ensure that terrorists operating outside Iran cannot draw material or political support from inside Iran. I welcome statements by Iran's leaders condemning all terrorism in principle. We hope to see those words put into action and vigorous efforts made to combat all terrorist groups.
	The hon. Gentleman and I have covered many important points in the course of the debate. I hope that I have conveyed the Government's genuine and strong commitment to engaging positively with Iran and that I have underlined the fact that our engagement is conditional and depends on progress by Iran in our areas of concern. I believe that this policy carries with it the greatest chance of bringing Iran into the international community and making it a positive influence in the middle east.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at twenty-six minutes past Seven o'clock.